Constricted Horizons
by ElizabethAnnFanfic
Summary: Post "all things" but not consistent with canon thereafter. Mulder and Scully are living together and growing apart. Angst and MSR. Appearances by Margaret Scully, Skinner, and the Lone Gunmen.
1. Prologue

Prologue

The estrangement took place so slowly that it felt absolutely glacial. He could see the cracks and he heard the distant rumblings that threatened a full blown collapse of the ice upon which he depended on for support, but it was hard to see any real change from one day to the next. It was a wearing away over time. It almost seemed inevitable. As if he had been waiting for it to reach this point since the moment they'd met. He was always waiting for her to leave.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Highly attuned to Dana Scully's emotional circuitry, Mulder was aware of something going wrong before he imagined that she even knew herself. Small crystallizing moments that made him cringe when he rehashed them at his leisure. She was pulling away from him in the most infinitesimal of increments. He watched these passing events like an outside player—someone disengaged from the action and incapable of interfering. He let them pass without comment and pretended that they would come to nothing if he allowed her the space she was seeking.

As they began to multiply and expand, however, he found it harder to remain motionless. He began to hold tighter. It was reflexive. He held to her like a drowning man. He had been a lifeguard in high school and he'd gone through the certification that taught him what to do if a drowning victim began to drag you down—take a breath and dive under the water: Scully was merely taking a deep breath. He could see that his actions were irksome to her and threatened to push her even further away, but in his panic he was powerless to stop himself.

They began to play out the same pointless conversation time and time again, driving the wedge deeper with every exchange.

"Where were you?"

"I told you, I was out for a run."

"You've been gone for three hours."

"I ran for a long time."

Checking up like a warden: that's how he imagined he was beginning to come off. Desperate. And he was. A run, a trip to the grocery store, a lunch with her mother—all things that took monumentally longer than he thought they should; all things that he might have been invited along to do, if she hadn't expressly wanted to get away from him. If they weren't working or they weren't in bed, there was very little time Scully seemed to have for him anymore. There were always things to be done. Things that kept her away—physically and emotionally.

He sat alone in the dark of their bedroom. Correction: her bedroom. Maybe that was the first crack. The moment he had to ask her to live with him just so he could get her to sleep through the night with him. She'd done it on occasion, but she also had a sickening habit of disappearing before the sun came up. It always had left him feeling exposed when he would roll over to find her gone.

So, when he'd laced his hands in her hair and told her he wanted them to move in together, he had been trying to put an end to her evasive maneuvers. He'd been partially successful. She had agreed, but then, he'd been kissing her at the time and drawing her towards his bedroom. He noted with no small amount of chagrin that many of the things he'd gotten her to agree to took place under similar circumstances. He was only able to break through to her when she was smashed against his chest. That wasn't particularly flattering anymore: he wished it didn't have to be that way.

The morning after her assent to his suggestion, she actually had still been there in his bed. It was a moment of triumph until she'd nudged him and told him she liked her apartment and didn't want to move.

"Not a problem. I'll move in with you."

"And give up your apartment?"

"Well, yeah."

"I don't know," she'd said rolling onto her back, so she didn't have to meet his eye. "My apartment isn't big enough for all of our things."

"So, I'll ditch my stuff. As long as you'll let me bring my clothes," he'd teased.

"You'd just give up everything of yours?" she'd asked sounding mystified by his statement.

"Yes."

A million times yes. What the hell did furniture and a fish tank matter when he could be with Scully? Really be with her.

"I don't want you to do that. I don't know…it makes me uncomfortable."

Of course it did. So, he'd moved in with her and he'd kept the damn apartment. Full to the gills with his bullshit and doing nothing more than collecting dust and costing him a rent check every month, but he did it to assuage Scully's discomfort. He knew somewhere in the recesses of his mind what the apartment stood for. Nothing was permanent apparently—not even their relationship. She needed something to signal that they weren't inseparable: he had her place, she had hers. He'd need someplace to retreat to once she decided the symbolism simply wasn't enough. What that ultimately meant was that he was just a visitor in her dark bedroom.

He heard the door to the apartment open and close with a click. There were muffled sounds, but no lights came on. He continued to sit on the edge of the bed, fully dressed despite the late hour. He waited.

Finally, she appeared in the doorway to the bedroom and she stopped short seeing him sitting there.

"Mulder?" she said quietly.

She was holding her black high heels in her hand. Probably so she wouldn't wake him with her footfalls. As if he could sleep.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" she asked stepping into the room, but not moving to switch on the overhead light.

"I'm waiting for you," he responded, his voice sounding gravelly from lack of use over the past few hours.

She bent down and deposited her heels on the floor with a soft clatter. He could hear her sigh heavily. She was displeased that he'd stayed up.

"I was finishing up the autopsy. You knew that."

"Scully, it's 3 AM for fuck's sake," he said, the anger rising in the back of his throat like yellow bile.

"It took a while," she replied calmly.

Sometimes he wished she would match his passions, so he didn't seem like such a goddamn lunatic.

"You didn't answer your phone. I've been calling since midnight."

"Must have been off," she said dismissively as she moved towards her dresser.

Mulder took advantage of her passing proximity as she walked by him, stroking her forearm with his knuckles. "Come here," he pleaded.

She paused considering his request before acceding. He pulled her close, and she stepped in between his legs so that her shins pressed against the box-spring of the bed. He leaned his head into her middle, slipping his arms around the backs of her thighs and pressing his forehead into the warm fabric of her blue sweater. She'd been avoiding him. Refusing to answer his calls. But, he couldn't help himself: he wanted to touch her, to be near her, to know she was still his. He closed his eyes and inhaled as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Her touch and her aura were supposed to calm him, but the effect was startlingly in the reverse. She simply didn't smell right. He pulled back from their embrace and let his arms slip from her petite frame so that they fell heavily in his lap like a golem suddenly drained of its animating force.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

"Performing the autopsy, Mulder," she reaffirmed.

He could see her blinking in the darkness. If it wasn't so dark, he might have been able to see whether lies danced behind the baby blues he was so hypnotically fond of or whether she'd learned to conceal all from him.

"You smell like an ashtray."

She stepped back and walked towards her initial destination of the dresser. She pulled out a drawer and rummaged in its contents. Plucking out a new pair of satin pajamas, she placed them on top of the dresser as she yanked her sweater over her head and unzipped her pencil skirt. He waited, his teeth jarring against each other in silent fury.

Having slipped into her pajamas, she moved back to the bed and crawled across the comforter towards the pillows.

"Are you going to get ready for bed, Mulder?" she asked. "You may not be aware of this, but you're still in your suit."

Well, he'd removed his coat and tie. That was something. He stood up and began to undo his belt and the button on his pants.

"I didn't think you'd be awake," she said.

He glanced over at her as he unrolled his white shirt sleeves and undid the buttons on his cuffs: she had her legs pulled up to her chest and she was mindlessly examining her fingernails.

"And I wasn't tired," she continued.

It seemed that her confession was going to come out in a trickle. He only had to remain silent to let it run out in a sullied stream. He kicked his pants off and shrugged off his shirt.

"So, I went for a drink."

He stood motionless by the bed in his boxers, processing this peculiar admission. "By yourself?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked defensively.

She was defending herself against an accusation of infidelity. Oh, she was unfaithful, but not in that way, Mulder was certain.

"It means, it doesn't sound like something you'd do: go to a bar in the middle of the night by yourself for a nightcap? You'll have to expand."

"I finished up. I wasn't tired. I assumed you were asleep," she answered in quick staccato.

"I wasn't," he interrupted. "Listen, the next time you want to get a drink at this hour, give me a call. I don't like that you were out by yourself."

It was ludicrous that he even had to say such things to her. If she was really that interested in going out, she should _want_ to call him. She'd want to sit across from him in the booth and trade quips over drinks the way they had on rare occasions before they'd ever become something more than friends and partners.

"I can handle myself."

"I'm aware of that," he said as he slid into the bed. "I don't like having your ability to do so tested, however," he sighed, his head hitting the pillow.

"Monsters, villains…I handle all of those. A couple of drunks are child's play," she said languidly.

Her hand snaked out across the bed sheets and found its way up his torso, where she traced lazy circles with her fingers in his chest hair. His pulse quickened under the influence of her light ministrations. He rolled on his side to face her and her hand slipped from his chest. He couldn't think while she was touching him.

"Are you _trying_ to worry me?" he asked.

"No," she said tucking her hand under her cheek that rested on the pillow.

"Are you trying to make me jealous?"

"Are you?" she asked.

"Should I be?"

"I didn't do anything."

He hadn't imagined that she did. But, the thought that he'd been sitting here alone and worried while she sidled up to a bar for any man to approach without impunity, made him feel markedly possessive.

"You want me to ask how many men hit on you?"

"No. Why would anything like that happen?" she asked blinking those stunning eyes of hers once more.

He snorted, "Why would men hit on you when you're an attractive woman alone in a bar? Am I the only male of the species you're acquainted with, Scully?"

"Nothing happened. I wouldn't do that to you, Mulder."

"I know you wouldn't," he conceded. She could do any number of things that might break his heart, but that wasn't one of them. "Just…check in with me, okay?"

She sighed, "I never used to have to _check in_."

He was well aware that he had not always been so considerate with her: she had thrown in his face more than once that she was well-acquainted with being ditched and being worried sick. A lesser woman would be paying him back, but he knew this wasn't the case.

He rolled towards her, slipping his hand under her pajama top and nestling his face in the crook of her neck. "You never used to sleep with me either," he mouthed against the skin below her ear. He could feel goosebumps develop along her side as he ran his hand higher up. But the scent of cigarettes also lingered in her hair. Damn her, his little frozen infidel. "Promise you'll call in the future," he whispered against her ear.

She squirmed under his touch, grasping at his sides with her delicate hands.

"I'll try," she mumbled as he captured her mouth with his own.

She had made this half-hearted promise before. It never did any good.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"You want to tell me what happened to Fox?"

"He couldn't make it," Scully lied.

"I haven't seen him in ages. Is everything alright?"

Leave it to her mother to sense something was amiss. Scully wasn't sure herself what exactly was wrong. Lately she merely felt compelled to keep him at arm's length. Exclude him from things, when given the choice. That included dinners at her mother's, even though her mother always invited him; Scully simply didn't pass the invitation along. And when she walked out the door that afternoon, she took note of the look he gave her: he knew he wasn't being included on her end—not her mother's.

"He's just busy," Scully insisted before grabbing her water glass and taking a large swallow.

Her mother continued to watch her with that gaze she knew so well. Her mother wasn't going to let this drop, which was unsettling, because if she was uncertain herself of what was wrong, she had no desire to hash it out with her mother. At least if she'd brought Mulder she wouldn't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

"I made his favorite, thinking he might come," her mother said looking down with regret at the dinner she had prepared.

Guilt. She was going to try to guilt her into saying something soul-bearing.

"How do you know roast is his favorite?"

Scully wasn't aware if it was. Her mother was the type of woman she couldn't make herself become. The kind of woman who knew what type of dish would please her husband or how he liked his shirts pressed. Scully knew what to say to provoke Mulder on a case, however. Or how to wind him up in bed. She'd cornered the market in that kind of knowledge.

"He told me, Dana. And I simply think he'd like to come over sometimes."

Scully set her fork down. "What do you mean, Mom?"

"He's always busy when I invite you two. Are you actually inviting him, Dana Katherine?"

The middle name accusation. She was sunk. Her mother was too well attuned to subterfuge after raising four children for Scully to be able to fool her for long.

"I like our time alone, Mom" Scully insisted.

It was a half-truth. Yes, she did enjoy being alone with her mother, but her motives for not including Mulder had very little to do with her appreciation for time spent alone with her mother.

"He doesn't have a family, Dana. I think you're being unfair." Her mother gave her a disapproving look and Scully immediately felt as if she was twelve all over again. Mulder had lost his family and she was barring him from hers. "I have to say, I don't understand. You seemed very happy a year ago. Happier than you've been in years."

Scully put her napkin on the table. She didn't feel like eating anything else.

"I was."

"So, you want to tell me what happened?"

"I don't know. Nothing. Everything is fine."

"Mmhmm," her mother said sounding unconvinced. "Is it work?"

"No. Work is fine."

They'd been working together for years. She had that down.

Her mother nodded. "I thought perhaps…I thought maybe you'd be engaged by now."

Scully rolled her eyes. "You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I'm not. No need to pull a face. Why is that so ridiculous?"

"Because, Mulder and I are not on that schedule."

"What schedule are you on exactly?"

"Isn't it enough that Bill and Charlie are married?" Scully asked pursing her lips.

"We're not talking about your brothers. This is about you, Dana. Your happiness."

"I don't have to be married to be happy," Scully responded defensively.

Scully felt the muscles in her neck tighten. Arguing with her mother was one of her least favorite activities. She always felt like she was playing out of her league and there could be no real winner.

"I know that. It's just that you moved in together. And you seemed so happy when you two finally got together."

"That's where it ends though. We're not going to get married. No wedding. No babies."

There couldn't be babies, even if that's what she wanted. Her Hail Mary pass had failed nearly two years ago in a disappointing series of failed IVF treatments. But, her mother didn't know that. It was one of many things she'd kept from her mother. Her mother only knew one compartment of Dana Scully. Scully was made up of several self-created compartments, including Agent, Doctor, Daughter, Sister, Lover, and the Dana Scully that she let no one see—not even Mulder. It was this last compartment that she held onto most fiercely of all, even if she didn't like her all that well.

"Okay. I'm not pushing. I just had the wrong impression, I suppose. Does Fox know how you feel?"

"It's never come up. It's not going to. Trust me: Mulder is not thinking about wedding bells, Mother."

"Just be careful, Dana. Don't sabotage yourself."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"I know that your independence can be as much a problem for you as it is a blessing. Fox loves you, despite whatever flaws he might have."

"Flaws? I'd like you to name two," she said raising one arched brow in defiance.

Her mother seemed incapable of seeing the imperfections that Mulder had in spades. For some reason they'd developed a bond over hospital beds and graves that was above reproach.

"I wish he wasn't quite so dangerous."

Scully could help but choke back a laugh. "I'm just as dangerous."

It didn't escape her notice that her mother had failed to come up with a second flaw.

"I never wished anything different for you despite my reservations on that point, Dana, because I know he loves you."

Scully shook her head. "I know he loves me. I've known that for a long time, Mom."

"Okay, then you might include him when I invite the two of you to dinner. That's what normal couples do, Dana."

"We're not normal, I guess." Scully scooted her chair away from the dining room table; the sound of the legs scraping against the hardwood floor made her tightly wound muscles convulse disagreeably in her neck. "You know, you might try taking my side, Mother."

Maggie began to gather up the plates and stack them together. Scully did the same.

"There are no sides when you love someone, Dana. I didn't raise you to be a combatant in your own relationship."

No sides? She should inform Mulder of this information: they'd spent the last eight years taking sides on nearly everything. Nevertheless, her mother's reprimand had the intended effect: she felt guilty about her behavior. It made her recall the placid relationship her mother and father had enjoyed, and reminded herself that this was probably not an accident of fate, but the result of studious compromise.

Scully carried the half-empty dishes into the kitchen followed closely by her mother.

"I'll bring him next time," she promised.

"Please do."

…

While she had drawn out her visits with her mother the last few times she had been invited over for dinner or met her for lunch, tonight she hurried home. Her mother wasn't exactly providing her with the escape she hungered for. So, she jumped in her car and for once, staring down at her cell phone in the seat next to her, she decided to give Mulder a call and let him know she was on her way. She had been promising to do so for the past few months, and maybe her mother was right about not acting like an enemy combatant: conceding to Mulder's wishes wasn't giving up a foxhole.

"Mulder, it's me."

"Hey."

"I've got leftovers for you. Mom made a roast."

"Sounds good. You still at your mom's?"

"No, I'm on my way home. She says hello though."

"Home so early?" he asked sounding surprised.

"She was giving me the third degree."

"Ah. You had to pay for the roast."

"Yeah, something like that. I'll be home in an hour."

'There,' she thought. 'That wasn't so hard.' Maybe she needed to learn how to make concessions and not view them as tactical losses of independence. Maybe they were merely proof that someone cared about her and wanted to be with her. That couldn't be a bad thing.

Author's Note: A little light on M/S interaction this time around, but I'll make up for it in the next few chapters.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

She entered the apartment, carrying the container of leftovers that her mother had packed for Mulder with a decided air of maternal disappointment.

Mulder was splayed out on the couch with the television on and his laptop in his lap. He pulled off his glasses and muted the television with the remote, turning to look over the back of the sofa as she set her things down.

"That smells fantastic."

"Mom said it's your favorite."

"It is. I know she was giving you a hard time tonight," Mulder said moving the laptop to the coffee table and standing up, stretching so that his stomach was exposed below his hitched up grey t-shirt. "But, she's alright in my book." He walked over to her, took her coat and kissed her on the forehead. "I'm glad you're home," he said before hanging up her coat.

She sighed. His statement made her feel even guiltier although she knew that wasn't the intention.

"You want me to heat this up for you?" she asked, as she walked into the kitchen with her mother's 1970's orange Tupperware.

"Maybe I ordered in," he called to her.

"I don't see pizza boxes," she called back before opening the microwave and grabbing a plate.

He entered the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. She dumped the contents of the container on the plate and popped the plate in the microwave, pressing start. Her microwave had gotten a lot more use since Mulder had moved in with her. She wasn't going to be making a roast for him anytime soon, but she could heat up a meal for him. She turned to face him as the microwave began to hum.

"What do you want to do this evening?" he asked.

Inexplicably, his question made her nervous. What _would_ they do? They hadn't spent an evening in together where they weren't working on something in a couple of months.

"I don't know," she said turning to watch the plate rotate within the microwave.

"You want to pick out a movie?" he asked.

"You weren't working on something?"

"I was, but you're home. I can put it aside for the night."

Before they'd ever become romantically involved, Scully had imagined that no woman could take Fox Mulder's attention away from his work on the X-Files. She had counted it as one of Mulder's drawbacks whenever she was in need of a reason to discount him as anything more than a friend and partner. Indeed, he was still driven to the point of obsession, but he would willingly set aside work for her. She mused that this should flatter her, knowing how highly the X-Files ranked with him, but it only made her feel some unspeakable pressure to give equally of herself—something she perhaps was not able to do.

The microwave pinged and she opened the door and removed the steaming plate. Mulder went to the drawer where the cutlery was kept and grabbed himself some utensils. She placed the food on the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. He joined her and unfolded a paper napkin in his lap—a neat trick he'd learned from living with her, she thought with a smile.

"Careful: it's hot," she said, as she leaned her chin on her propped up hand.

"You want to tell me what your mom was fussing about?" he asked, cutting away at the roast.

Scully pursed her lips and inhaled slowly. "Hmm…us."

"_Us_? Us?" he asked looking at her over a forkful of mashed potatoes.

"Mmhmm." She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "I can't believe I'm going to tell you this, but…"

He raised his brows expectantly as he chewed.

"She thought we'd be engaged by now."

She watched his face as he digested this bit of information. Mulder could be animated when he chose, but he could also read like a stone. At the moment he looked like a stone: handsome, but blank.

Swallowing, Mulder paused. "Really?"

"That was part of it."

"Huh," he said looking back down at his plate. "That bothers her, I guess? That we're not?"

She could sense that beneath his blank composure he was struggling with something. Maybe this was something she shouldn't have told him. In fact, she couldn't explain why she had thought to mention it. She had told her mother that the topic of marriage not only hadn't come up but that it never would. Here she was throwing the door open.

"I don't know what Mom was getting at."

In actuality, she got the feeling that her mother wasn't so much disappointed that they weren't married, as worried that the delay was due to her daughter's failings—not Fox Mulder's. While Scully never had thought marriage was something Mulder would envision for himself, she could be wrong. After all, he had been married before. She was the consummate single in this scenario; not him.

"Is it a Catholic thing?" he asked pushing around some peas on his plate without looking up.

"A mom thing, I think."

He nodded.

"You're coming with me next time," she said resignedly.

"Oh yeah? Protect you from the grilling?"

"That would help."

"Or deflect? Is she pissed at me?" Mulder asked frowning.

"You? I don't know if that's possible."

He looked none too sure about her statement, but he shrugged, "Well, sure I'll come. I'd love to."

And again, she felt like a heel.

…

* * *

Mulder felt more centered than he had in weeks with Scully pressed against his chest as they watched the movie from the sofa. Her head was such a pleasant weight against his chest. With his arm wrapped around her shoulder, he slowly ran his hands through her silky red tresses that had grown somewhat longer since they'd begun seeing each other.

He wasn't sure what had come over her to make her behave this way. The phone call, the early return home, and now an evening spent together doing nothing. These actions were all somewhat unusual, particularly in their quick succession. He wondered whether their last go-round about calling when she wasn't going to be home for hours on end had actually had some effect. It wasn't an impossibility, but somehow he didn't think their conversation was the source of this subtle shift in behavior. Not that he was complaining.

It could have been the visit with her mother. When she'd left for Maryland without him yet again, he'd sat for about an hour brooding. Brooding on their strange relationship, where she was unwilling or incapable of fully letting him in. He knew the lack of an invitation had nothing to do with Margaret Scully: he felt without a doubt that Scully's mother liked him. She accepted him and she welcomed him into her home and her family. It was Scully that was keeping him away, and this evening's exclusion from dinner was only a symptom of a larger problem. After an hour of self-centered reflection, he'd turned on the television and gotten out his laptop. The more electronic ways he could distract his mind the better.

Little did he know that while he was alone in their apartment, Scully and Margaret were discussing marriage or the lack of it. He hadn't seen that coming. And the conversation had literally made Scully flee her mother's house. She seemed somewhat blindsided by the suggestion that they might be engaged by this time. As if she'd never thought about it.

"Do you ever think about it?" he asked.

Scully lifted her head to meet his gaze, "About time travel?" she asked, mistakenly assuming that he was referencing the movie.

"Well, a discussion about time travel might be a great form of foreplay, but I meant what your mother said…about us."

He hoped he had made himself sound light-hearted. He didn't want to scare her. After years of partnership, it didn't take sexual knowledge of Dana Scully to know that you had to approach intimacy with her with the utmost care; otherwise she'd bolt like a skittish colt.

"That conversation my mom brought up does _not_ make for great foreplay," she deadpanned turning her attention back to the television.

'Ouch.' But, maybe she'd misunderstood him. "Hypothetically speaking, did you want to be married?" he asked, his hand slipping from the back of her head to rest in her lap.

"Did I ever want to be married?" she asked flatly still staring forward.

"Yeah."

"I think most little girls dream about a wedding and assume they'll spend their lives playing house."

"But…" he provided.

"Life has different plans. If I'd gotten married back when I was twenty-three or so, when my girlfriends were getting married, I'd probably never have gotten my degree in medicine or…worked for the FBI."

He kissed the back of her head, smelling the faint lemony perfume of her shampoo. Even after having a full access pass to Scully for over a year, the mere scent of her shampoo could threaten to disturb his plane of thought and send him into a state of heady arousal.

"It's not like it's out of the question, you know," he spoke into her hair.

Scully grabbed the remote and pressed the pause button.

"We're not watching this anyway. Why don't we call it a night," she suggested, disentangling herself from his grip and dropping the remote back onto the sofa cushion.

He flipped off the television, but remained motionless, watching her in the darkness as she rearranged the pillows around him that had been disturbed during their movie viewing. He was unsure whether she was avoiding his implied meaning or whether she hadn't caught his drift. It was a safe bet that she was avoiding him; that was more Scully's game than denseness.

It might be smart to stop now, but he'd waded in up to his waist—he might as well get his ears wet.

"We _could_ get engaged," Mulder said casually, as if he was suggesting that they _could _get coffee, if she wanted. Scully stood upright, obviously so taken aback that she couldn't even muster up one of her icy glares. 'Okay. Maybe willfully dense.' Scully simply didn't _want_ to understand him.

"To each other?" she asked in shock.

He snorted, "Yeah, that's what I meant." As if there was someone else he would want to marry. As if she was still soliciting for better offers.

He swallowed when she didn't respond. At least she hadn't run from the room. It wasn't as if he'd exactly thought she would break down in tears of unbridled joy after all. But, she could still throw one hell of an uppercut to his psyche.

"That better not be a proposal," she finally replied.

She sounded angry, as if she was about to boil over and spoil her perfect composure. That wasn't what he'd expected from her. Rejection, perhaps, or mirth at the ridiculousness of his offer, but not anger. He licked his lips, searching her eyes for some sign of what she was thinking, but the darkness made them impossible to read.

"Have I ruined the mood?" he asked trying to sound flippant. She didn't need to know how much she'd just hurt him.

"It's not your job to fulfill some childhood fantasy of mine, Mulder. I'm _not_ in need of saving," she insisted defensively, her hands going to her hips.

He stood up, reaching out to her, "Hey, cool down."

"I'm perfectly cool," she spat back.

"Okay," he said raising his hands in surrender. "I messed up."

Yes, he'd unwittingly intimated that Dana Scully wasn't as independent as she pretended to be. That he wanted to play white knight to her helpless maiden. When that wasn't what he'd meant at all. He was fully aware _she didn't need him_. He'd just hoped that despite the past few baffling months they'd spent dancing around each other that _she wanted him_. Apparently she didn't.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

She was exhausted. Sometimes she drew strength from Mulder's alkaline energy, but lately it felt like he was draining her of energy without even trying. His need to be loved dwarfed hers and that in turn made her feel guilty. And the guilt made her want to distance herself, which in turn made him act more desperate. The desperation only pointed out their very different temperaments—his always needing more and hers always wanting limits. It was wearisome.

Mulder's bizarre question a few nights ago had been a shock to the system. She wasn't sure whether it was a proposal or a joke or the musings of a mad man, but it had catapulted her into a full on emotional meltdown. Per usual she had to keep herself composed. She hoped that Mulder had not guessed that she was fraying at the edges, because she was clinging to the notion that she would be able to pull it together. Not just for his sake, but for theirs.

She wanted it to work. She really did. She recited it to herself silently: 'I want it to work. I want it to work. I want it to work.' A compulsive thought flitted through her feverish brain: If she said it enough times—not too many and not too few, but some mystical number—and she said it with just the right emphasis, she could make everything work. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, thinking with chagrin that uncontrollable inner dialogs were more Mulder's specialty than hers. At least, she assumed they were. She had thought that she could actually see him chanting things to himself at times. Maybe she not only had her own neuroses these days: maybe she was afflicted with Mulder's as well. Insanity by association.

Perhaps her exhaustion was more than mental. It certainly felt like it, as she lay with the blinds closed in her bedroom with a wet washcloth draped over her forehead and eyes. It was as if she needed to crawl inside a dark cave for several weeks and rebuild herself from the inside out; only, she knew she didn't have several weeks to disappear and recoup—not from work and not from Mulder. Maybe she just needed a good head shrinking.

Scully was aroused from the sleep she must have slipped into when she heard the apartment door close with a rattle. She recognized the sound of Mulder's footfalls in the living room, but she couldn't raise herself from the bed. She couldn't even remove the washcloth from her eyes that blocked out the early evening sun's dying rays.

"Scully?" he called.

"I'm in bed," she managed to call back.

The footfalls approached and stopped close to the bed.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

"Just a headache."

"You sure?"

"I'm fine."

She licked her lips, thinking she could almost hear Mulder's irritation at her last statement. Mulder didn't like it when she refused to commit to more than a 'fine.' But, she was. She was fine.

She was fine.

Fine.

"Let me get something for you," he tried again.

Scully reached up and pressed the washcloth to her eyes so tightly that little white stars appeared behind her closed lids. "No, I'm fine."

She could hear him scuffing his feet in the pile of the carpet in impotent frustration. The bed dipped indicating that he'd sat down, but he made no move to touch her.

"I'm headed to New Mexico tonight."

Scully pulled the washcloth from her eyes and locked eyes with him. He looked tired or defeated. Probably both.

"Tonight?"

"I need to interview the Hornsbys early in the morning. I don't want them too tampered with by the time I get there."

Scully propped herself up on her elbows. "Should I pack?" He hadn't said 'we,' but she couldn't remember the last time he'd left her behind.

"No, I'm probably going to be sending some things back to the Lab Division that I'll want you to handle."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Besides, I don't want to sit next to you on the plane while you wretch into a barf bag," he said with a tight-lipped smile.

This was Mulder's way of letting her know that he'd heard her getting sick not once but twice this morning before they'd left for work. He was aware that she wasn't feeling well before she'd ever announced she was going home early for the day. Another example of her lack of privacy: she not only had Mulder hovering over her shoulder at work, but also hovering outside her bathroom while she puked her guts out.

"It's just a piece of something. I'll be better by tomorrow," she insisted, slipping back onto the pillow with a sigh.

"Whatever you say, doc."

And then to her surprise he got up and left the room. No questions. No offers of assistance. No worried glances.

…

Scully sat slumped against the tub, trying to take solace in the cool feel of the bathroom floor tiles against her bare thighs. She had been in the midst of getting dressed in her blue blouse and cream silk panties when another wave of nausea had hit her and she'd barely made it to the toilet.

She dragged the back of her hand across her clammy forehead before looking at her watch: It was almost eight in the morning. She was going to be late. And Mulder still hadn't called. It was six in New Mexico and his flight should have landed about an hour ago. He should have already gotten his bag and filled out the rental car papers. He should be on the road to the local field office or the Hornsbys'. There was plenty of time for him to have called. She'd left her cell phone on the dresser in her mad dash for the bathroom, but she would have heard it, if it had rung. She would have made an effort to pull herself off this floor.

She leaned her elbow on the white seat of the open toilet and rested her forehead against her forearm for a few moments, collecting herself. She'd come to a realization that did nothing to calm her rolling stomach: Mulder wasn't going to call. It didn't matter if his connecting flight had been delayed and he hadn't landed yet. Or his cell phone was dead and needed to be charged. Or his luggage was lost and he was arguing with the airline. Whatever was going on with Mulder, she wasn't going to get a call from him telling her he'd arrived. She was out of the loop again. She was on a need-to-know basis. Just like she used to be, when he'd take off without notice and nearly get himself killed.

The irony was that he wasn't doing it to punish her. If he had been, she could be angry with him, but his current motives left her unable to react. He was doing it, because she'd made it pretty clear that she had been more comfortable back when that's the way they operated. Real intimacy made her go cold.

She wrenched herself off the seat, bracing herself for the inevitable feeling of sea-sickness that she knew would accompany her attempt to stand up. Bracing herself for the long day ahead, knowing she'd been given what she wanted. She was the child who unwrapped her big gift on Christmas morning only to find that she wished she hadn't spent the last few months whining for what was inside.

She'd have to change her blouse before she left for work, even though she was already late. Otherwise it would bother her all day to think she'd vomited in this one.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Her cell phone began to ring as she walked through the hallway towards the X-Files office and she dug in her purse for it while continuing to walk forward. Successfully locating it, she felt a pang of regret when she saw the LCD display: it wasn't Mulder. She'd told herself that it wouldn't be, but her disappointment was palpable nonetheless.

"Scully," she answered.

"I called down in your office an hour ago. Where are you?"

Skinner didn't identify himself, but she recognized his thinly veiled impatience without the benefit of an introduction.

"I'm here now."

"Where is here?"

"The office. I'm opening the door," she said, as she awkwardly held the phone with her cheek and shoulder as she managed the door and her bags.

"I need you up here right away."

"Is everything alright?" she asked, her voice catching. 'This is what it feels like,' she remembered. 'Not knowing.'

"You're going to have to tell me," he said before hanging up.

Scully took a few minutes to lay out her things on her table, trying to arrange things physically while she composed herself mentally. She didn't know what Skinner needed to talk to her about, but she couldn't let the personal problems she was experiencing show up in her countenance. And she couldn't throw up in his office.

She was thankful she had foregone any breakfast as she approached Skinner's secretary's desk and prepared for whatever awaited her.

"He's waiting. You can go right in."

Kimberly was fully familiar with the hot water Scully and Mulder were constantly in, since she served as Skinner's gatekeeper. Scully could see that Skinner was in a mood just by looking at the woman's face as she gestured towards Skinner's office door.

Scully opened the door and Skinner looked up at her over his glasses.

"You're not in New Mexico, Agent Scully."

Scully paused, taken aback by his comment. Regaining her composure, she turned to shut the door. "No, I'm not," she replied as she approached his desk and took a seat opposite him. She folded her hands in her lap, trying to take on an aura of calm professionalism.

"I told Mulder I didn't want him out there on his own."

Scully quirked her eyebrow at him. "He didn't tell me that."

"What _did_ he tell you?"

"Just that he was leaving and he wanted me to stay behind."

"Are you sick?" Skinner asked, sizing her up for signs of illness.

Scully licked her lips, trying to frame her response. "I'm a little under the weather."

"Mulder told me you couldn't go with him because you were sick," Skinner grumbled in disapproval before glancing down at some papers in front of him in seeming exasperation.

"I don't know what Agent Mulder told you, sir, but I could have gone into the field with him. I stayed behind, because he told me that I'd need to look over some things he'd be having sent to the Lab Division."

Skinner nodded, still not looking up from the papers spread on his desk. "Do you know what I'm looking at, Agent Scully?"

"No, sir." But her interest was piqued.

"The Hornsby case as it currently stands. How familiar are you with this case?"

Scully shifted in her chair. She felt caught unaware. Usually she could have answered that question with no problem, but they'd started working on the Hornsby case about the same time she'd begun to feel ill and Mulder had taken up the slack while she nursed a headache.

"Agent Mulder is more familiar with it than I am, but…"

Skinner looked up at her, fixing her with a stare that would have wilted a less seasoned agent. "Did it not occur to you that Mulder might get himself into trouble on this one?"

Scully tilted her head, trying to reason through her headache and nausea as to what Skinner was intimating. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"The Hornsbys have had two little girls go missing. One ten years ago and another one six days ago. They were both taken in the night at the age of eight. You're the best team for this job, but Mulder needs you out there with him…as a _team_."

Scully's hands went from her lap to the arms of the chair. She gripped them instinctively, as her heart began to race unpleasantly.

"Wait," she directed. "Little girls?"

Skinner removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I'm going to ask you again: how familiar are you with this case?"

"That isn't what Mulder told me," she insisted, her tone rising quickly. It wasn't _anything_ like what he'd told her: he'd been vague and downright misleading. "I have to get out there."

"Wait," Skinner said, holding up his hand to stop her from bolting from the room. "I've already heard from him this morning."

"You have?" she asked quietly.

"He wanted me to tell you that he was hoping he'd have some evidence to send to you within the next day. He needed to make sure whatever it was would end up in the right hands."

She nodded. Mulder had fed Skinner the same line as he had her.

"You want to tell me why I'm playing middle man here?" he asked before sliding his glasses back on.

Scully drew in a breath. 'What to say? Lovers' quarrel?'

They hadn't told anyone in the FBI. They certainly hadn't alerted human resources. No one was supposed to know about them. That they shared more than an office and an expense account. Except, Scully knew that it was most likely a fantasy they were living in to believe that no one knew what was going on. Every move they made was probably under close examination. Living and working under electronic surveillance was nothing new, after all. So, strictly maintaining professionalism while on assignment and in the Hoover Building truly meant diddly-squat. Besides, Skinner had probably known on some level for months…maybe even since the very beginning. A year ago. Four years ago. Eight?

"You can't let this get in the way of your work," Skinner said.

Scully thought his tone less authoritarian and more fatherly for a moment. As if he was giving his daughter advice about something he was not so comfortable about. 'This.' Whatever that meant to Skinner. She'd been placed in an awkward position and all she could do was nod assent to Skinner's paternal order Yes, sir: we'll play like good children.

"I'll get the first flight I can."

Skinner straightened the papers in front of him. "Why don't you wait for that evidence Mulder will be sending," he said, handing her the papers, "while you study up on this case. Follow his lead on this for the time being. If he goes off the rails, I think we'll know. I've got the Albuquerque field office all over him."

"Yes, sir."

…

The phone rang five times before going to voicemail. She rubbed the heel of her hand into her pounding temple as she listened to his brief message. She hadn't heard his voice—other than the monotone facsimile recording of 'Fox Mulder, leave a message'—in two days. The electronic beep cut through her brain matter like a knife going through warm butter.

"Mulder, it's me. The evidence arrived this morning. I got it priority processed. The two samples are a match. The blood is the same type and the fibers are from the same source. Where did you get these? The case file doesn't mention this evidence."

She paused, trying to think what exactly she should say.

"I read up on the case. I'd like to know what your take is. I've got my own theory, if you want to hear it."

She hung up without saying goodbye: they never said goodbye. It wouldn't do to start now even if the unannounced silence delivered by the off button seemed unnecessarily harsh at this particular moment. She placed the phone on the desk in front of her, sliding it away from herself as if the distance might encourage it to come to life.

…

"Agent Scully?"

Scully awkwardly fumbled with the lamp next to her bed, nearly dropping the phone from her grip as she did so. She had no idea what time it was and she was worried she'd slept through her alarm in her current state of lethargy.

"Sir?" she finally managed.

"I got a call from the New Mexico field office this morning."

"So early?" she asked nervously when her eyes focused on the red digital clock that read 7:03. Was this the call to announce that Mulder had gone _off the rails_ as Skinner put it?

"They took Mr. Hornsby into custody this morning."

"Mr. Hornsby?" she repeated in shock. "What does Mulder think about this?"

No one to ask but Skinner: Mulder sure as hell wasn't calling to tell her.

"Mulder is the one who had him brought in."

She ran her free hand through her hair with an exhalation of relief. "He thinks it's _Alan Hornsby_ that took the girls?"

Scully had been waiting with bated breath for Mulder's prognostications of aliens and government conspiracies. When in fact, Mulder believed it was the father. Strange that such an awful scenario could seem like such a relief to her. Nothing to do with Samantha.

And he'd figured the whole thing out without as much as one phone call to her.

Sometimes she hated how hard her work made her: two little girls were dead and she was fixated on how her partner didn't need her to solve the mystery.

"Were you expecting something else, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked.

"I don't know what I was expecting."

"Mulder got something out of Peggy Hornsby his first day there during questioning that led him to the evidence that you were looking at yesterday."

"Is he coming home?"

Scully winced at her own voice, squeezing her eyes shut. She shouldn't be asking her superior such loaded questions. It was painfully soul-baring.

"I spoke with him briefly," Skinner finally responded after what seemed like an unending silence. "He should be home tomorrow, if things go well today."

She nodded, as if Skinner could see her non-verbal response.

"He asked how you were feeling."

"I'm fine."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

He looked down at her with her red hair splayed out around her on the white pillow and her eyes moving behind her pale bluish lids. She was sound asleep, as she should be: it was past one in the morning. He tugged at his already loosened tie, still watching her. He wanted to drink her in to the point where his thirst for her might be quenched.

He hadn't seen her in days—days that felt like months. He hadn't even spoken to her. He'd replayed her harried messages endlessly every chance he got, but he hadn't given in to the urge to return her calls. Instead, he'd relayed all messages to her through Skinner. Skinner's tone of voice said it all: the AD was well aware that something was rotten in Denmark, but at least he had the decency not to say something outright about it. If he had, Mulder was certain he would have broken down. The case was too draining as it was; he didn't need his superior asking into the particulars of his broken relationship with his partner.

She stirred on the pillow as he tossed his white dress shirt on the ground and he paused, holding his breath. Her face knit briefly in a small frown. He was familiar with that expression.

Before having the distinct honor of working alongside Dana Scully, Mulder had never given much thought to redheads. He'd always had a thing for brunettes. But, as he was falling for her, he'd spent some time musing on his knowledge of classical redheads as a sort of porno for intellectuals.

Botticelli's famous _The_ _Birth of Venus_ depicted the ancient Roman goddess Venus emerging from the sea with long red tresses. Heady stuff to be sure, but Venus wasn't an apt comparison to his Scully. Yes, she was beautiful and she had sunk him hopelessly in love, but Scully could not be counted as a symbol of fertility. And Venus' epitaph: _Venus Felix_—lucky Venus—didn't seem to ring true given all Scully had been put through. Moreover, to purely sexualize someone as complex as Dana Scully also seemed entirely inappropriate, if not downright insulting. He'd saved pure objectification for the synthetic women in the videos that weren't his.

Mulder had settled on Boudica, the famous Celtic queen of East Anglian Britain who had fought with a great mass of red hair over her shoulders and was terrifying to behold on the battlefield in her feminine strength. An unorthodox choice perhaps, but she had frightened the seasoned Roman soldiers who faced her: That sounded more like his Scully—beautiful and terrifying. He could pull from history other notable titian queens, such as Queen Elizabeth I, but it pleased him to think of his pale diminutive partner secretly containing the power of a barbarian Celtic queen full of unbridled wrath.

Taking a step towards the bed as he pulled on a pair of sweats, he stumbled over the shoes he had disposed of several minutes earlier while engrossed in reverie.

"Fuck," he cursed under his breath as he righted himself and saw Scully rousing.

She blinked in the darkness. "You're home."

"Sorry, I didn't want to wake you."

He could have waited to take the first morning flight back to D.C., but she was the magnet and he was the lodestone helplessly drawn to her.

She scooted over making room for him, having been spread across the middle of the bed. She patted the empty pillow and Mulder slid into bed. Having been absent from the bed for several nights, Mulder detected Scully's scent no longer mingled with his own on the sheets. Each one of his five senses had missed her. If it wasn't the middle of the night, he would have liked to indulge all of them: run his hands up her thighs, taste the hollow of her throat, bury his nose in her hair, listen to her softly contented murmurs, and gaze upon every inch of her milky white skin. Instead, he lay on his back looking up at the white plaster ceiling and practicing restraint. She had been sick; the gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her rest.

"What time is it?" she asked, turning her face into her pillow and yawning.

"Too early. I caught the last flight out. Roll over."

Instead of rolling over, Scully nudged towards him, slipping her arm over his chest and one leg over his. She tucked her head into the crook of his arm and he could feel her exhale slowly against his chest. She was pleasantly warm from having been under the covers for probably a couple of hours at least. He reached up and began to run his fingers across her arm, trying to help her fall back asleep.

"Alan Hornsby," she mumbled with her lips brushing his skin.

He looked down at her and she stared back at him with half-lidded eyes.

"Yeah. Alan Hornsby."

She withdrew her arm for just a moment so as to tuck her wayward hair behind her ear before returning to Mulder's gentle ministrations.

"He wasn't a suspect in the first investigation," she said clearing her throat.

"Well, parents are never above suspicion in these cases."

"But, he wasn't named as a suspect," she insisted.

"No, he wasn't."

"You saw something no one else did."

"I guess." He continued stroking her arm. "It was no great stroke. Maybe it was just too awful to contemplate for most people…to think a pillar of the community…a father could do that."

He knew that fatherhood did not confer sainthood. Whatever demons Alan Hornsby suffered from, they were not assuaged by the birth of his beautiful daughters. It was Mulder's curse to be able to think like such a monster. It didn't escape him that he could more easily imagine the existence of such evil than what it would feel like to be a loving father. He had his own demons.

"Did his wife know?" Scully asked.

"She did and she didn't. She didn't _want_ to know, I guess." She didn't want to think the man she slept next to at night was capable of the most heinous of crimes. It wasn't so different from any number of lies most people told themselves about their relationships—just on a much larger scale. "But, it was all there if you asked the right questions."

"I didn't know the case involved child-abductions, Mulder."

"I know," he replied, pulling her slightly closer and leaning down to kiss the crown of her head. He'd purposely kept it from her. "Are you feeling better?"

She nodded against him. "Sick or not, I should have been there."

"You needed a break." 'From me,' he silently added. "And I needed you to help out with the evidence."

"The field office in Albuquerque could have handled that evidence. Or I could have taken care of it in the field," she argued, sounding less sleepy and more restless.

"Those idiots bungled it the first time around. Besides, I was being closely watched for signs of insanity. So, your job was covered."

Scully pushed at his chest in a feeble attempt at playfulness. She was probably so convinced that he'd go over the edge on a case like this that she had a hard time summoning up a sense of humor about it.

"I'm sure Skinner told you he had me on twenty-four hour wackadoo watch," he continued.

"He might have mentioned something."

"He's playing fast and loose with Bureau resources," Mulder said with a smirk.

"He was worried."

He could tell from the slight tremor in her voice that Skinner wasn't the only one.

"I told you, Scully. I'm at peace about my sister. Those little girls…that was a tragedy unto itself without having to wrap it up in my own psychosis."

She reached up and ran her fingers lightly down his forehead and nose, stopping briefly at his lips. He enjoyed the sensation of her light touch too much to be concerned about whether she was cataloging his facial imperfections.

"I don't stick around just to keep you sane, Mulder," she whispered, pressing her fingertips to his lips.

"Alright, Scully."

He wanted to believe her.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked in his sleepy bedroom tone, as he grabbed her wrist as she tried to slip from the bed.

"Shower."

"What's the rush?" he asked, still holding onto her wrist and tracing lazy circles against her pulse with his thumb.

"You probably need one too," she said pursing her lips.

"Is that an invitation?" he asked with a lazy smile.

She continued to stare at him, as she kneeled on top of the covers and refused to acknowledge his innuendo. Mulder let her wrist slip and stretched his arms above his head, bumping the headboard lightly with his knuckles. When she had gotten up from the bed, she'd pulled half of the covers with her, exposing Mulder's upper half. He'd come to bed in a stretched out pair of grey sweats and nothing else. They were slung low on his hips, displaying his tanned obliques. Despite all the craziness in New Mexico he must have found time to go running without his shirt on: you didn't get a tan like that in D.C. at this time of year.

She had a weakness for his obliques. Most men his age weren't slim enough that their oblique muscles showed, if they even had them.

"Hey," he repeated in the same throaty voice.

He must have noted where her gaze had strayed.

She tried to think of a witty remark, but her mind was blank. Men are supposed to be more aroused by visual stimuli than women, but it had been days since Mulder had been stretched out in her bed and that paired with his drowsy monotone had her brain awash in a surge of dopamine.

"Cat got your tongue?" he teased softly, as he sat upright and reached out for her.

She inched towards him, crawling on her knees until her head was pressed against his shoulder and her arms were slipped under his and wrapped around his back. He slid his hands under her shirt, running his fingers down the length of her spine.

Catching the hem of the over-sized t-shirt she was wearing, he nudged her head with his, "What's this about?" He tugged the shirt gently to indicate the subject of his question.

She'd been feeling vulnerable when she'd gone to sleep. The case was fairly sewn up from what Skinner had told her, and yet she'd still heard nothing. No call. No e-mail. No carrier pigeon. She'd already humiliated herself once by asking Skinner if Mulder was coming home: she couldn't do it again. So, she went to bed thinking Mulder wouldn't be there when she woke up. She never dreamed he'd come in the night, stealing back into her bed like a warm dream. She didn't think he'd be there to see that she'd absconded with his Navy t-shirt. Just for the night. Just to have a piece of him next to her.

She would have never done it if she'd known.

She turned her face into his neck, her nose bumping his clavicle. She couldn't think of a response that would acquit her of her moment of weakness. It occurred to her that she hadn't managed to formulate a single word in several minutes now.

He _could_ stand a shower, she discovered, breathing him in. He smelled of Mulder: Mulder sweat, Mulder skin, Mulder angst, and the vague remnants of Mulder soap. It wasn't a smell she objected to, however. It only heightened her current state. If he decided to take a shower now, she might mount a protest.

Still kneeling in the sheets, Scully sat up on her knees and climbed over Mulder's still covered legs, wrapping her legs around his waist. She needed to feel wedded to him: placing herself in his lap and pressing her chest against his seemed to be the best approximation she could achieve. Feeling his warmth soak into hers, she ducked her head back into his neck, allowing him to continue leisurely trailing his fingers over her back.

"Hey," he whispered into her hair.

Scully wondered if that was the only word in Mulder's vocabulary. Her musings were put to an end when he suddenly held her tightly to his chest with one arm before turning them both over on their sides. Scully's legs came untangled from around his waist and he kicked off the sheets before lowering her onto her back, balancing himself above her on forearms braced against the mattress.

"Please tell me you're feeling better," he urged her in a low growl.

'For heaven's sake, _yes_,' she screamed inside of her head. But all she could manage was a quick nod.

It was all the response he needed to devour her.

…

* * *

Hovering outside of the closed bathroom door, Mulder listened to the sounds of Scully gagging. He raised his hand, but failed to knock, which had been his intention.

He'd gone from sexually satisfied to deeply disturbed before, but never with Scully.

'Chalk this up as one for the memory books,' he thought.

Knowing how his sickly accurate mind worked, he anticipated that the imagine of Scully pushing him off of her seconds after he'd orgasmed and looking as if she was about to puke would replay at the most inconvenient times from here on out. The orgasm had been accompanied by a strangled confession of love on his part. The tint of nausea, the words of love, and the sexual release mixed together did not make for a pretty scene. Of course, she really _was_ about to puke and it wasn't just the appearance of physical repulsion; although, that wasn't much comfort. Maybe Scully's mind and body were in a competition to see who could reject him more completely.

'I guess a—how was it for you?—is out of the question,' he thought with a grimace.

He'd sat there on the bed, still breathing heavily as he heard the bathroom door shut with a clatter and wondering what exactly was going on. His post-coital thoughts had been somewhat unfocused. Finally it had dawned on him that Scully was throwing up again and he'd better search for his discarded pants. It wouldn't have been kosher to check on the patient in a state of complete undress.

"Scully?" he tried hesitantly.

The gagging had stopped, so he thought she might respond. Silence was all that returned to him from the other side of the door, however.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Mulder, go away."

Well, it was a response. Not the one he wanted though.

His hand lingered at the doorknob poised for action. He _could_ just go in to check on her. He could ignore her directive to scram and open the door. He lived with her. How much of an invasion would this really be? He was just…literally _just_ inside of her for shit's sake. But, his hand just lingered. Theoretically you could justify ignoring Scully's dictates, but you put yourself in mortal danger by doing so.

His stomach began to do flips itself. Not only in sympathy, but also due to a growing sense of utter horror that was steeling over him and turning his sweat drenched body into a cold clammy bundle of tightened muscles. He was fairly certain she'd said she was better before he…well, he hadn't waited for much encouragement. So much for being a gentleman.

"Scully," he demanded more urgently. "You alright?"

The toilet flushed. At least she was through for the moment.

He leaned his forehead on the door. If he pressed hard enough, maybe he'd be able to hear her thoughts and not just her indigestion. Was she cursing him? His indefatigability ardor? He rattled the doorknob for effect, so she'd know he was out there and wanted in.

"Go away," she repeated more loudly.

"Scully, I'm sorry. _Please_. I want to come in."

Mulder only tried 'please' when he was deeply in trouble. Pouting usually was all that was needed—a lesson learned with the ladies at an early age.

There was a soft scuffle on the other side of the door and then the knob that he held loosely in his hand turned and the door opened a crack. Mulder had to lean back in order to avoid falling through the doorway once the door was no longer there to keep him upright. Gripping the door, he opened it a few inches more and peered around the corner at Scully, who was sitting on the closed toilet wrapped in a white towel with her hair awry either from passion or purging, he wasn't sure which.

"Happy?" she asked sarcastically.

'Happy you let me in? Happy I just made you vomit? Happy I should have controlled myself better when you were sick?' He wasn't sure what her barb was aimed at. It had the effect of the spread of a shotgun—it hit everything all at once with low energy, but was still painful in close quarters. The bathroom they shared occupied by an angry Scully, who was staring him down accusatorially, qualified as close quarters.

If he would have had pockets, he would have buried his hands in them. Instead, he had to satisfy himself with curling his toes on the cold floor.

It finally occurred to Mulder that he might be able to actually do something useful rather than gawk and chew his bottom lip. He reached for the glass on the bathroom sink and filled it with water, handing it to Scully. He'd always found that there was nothing quite so nice as washing the taste of puke out of one's mouth.

Except for being buried inside of his Scully.

'Damn it. Shut down, id. Just for one goddamn minute.' He scrubbed his face, trying to clean his mind of its sex-addled thoughts.

She took the glass of water from him, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I thought…I thought you were feeling better, or I would have never…"

Those pockets would have really come in handy. As it was, he was flying without a net.

She set the water down on the sink with a sigh, "I've been sick the whole time you were gone. I just didn't want to tell you."

Mulder leaned against the sink. The move was a necessity: Scully had just admitted that she was _not_ fine. It was enough to take the breath out of his lungs. The first thought that came to mind was CANCER—in all capital letters, because that's how it always sounded in his mind when he thought about Scully and cancer. He gripped the edge of the counter so tightly that he felt it might come off in his hands. It would probably feel good to relieve some of this building pressure through brute violence, but Scully wouldn't approve of the collateral damage to her bathroom vanity.

She ran her hand over her forehead, "I thought it was a stomach bug, but it's gone on for too long for that."

'CANCER.'

"I'm tired and have these terrible headaches. I guess its migraines."

'Migraines? Not CANCER? How can you be sure?' He had the urge to bombard her with a hundred questions about her health and a hundred demands that she seek immediate medical attention.

For a headache and a stomachache.

Mulder tasted metal in his mouth: he'd worried his lip until he'd drawn blood, trying to drive the old threat from his mind. It seemed like a fitting punishment for his momentary hysteria. What he'd done was bad enough without dragging Scully's mortality into the equation. Because, cancer wouldn't just be about Scully's suffering, it would be about his as well. He could make just about anything about himself. He was Chief Officer Special Somebody of the Ego Division. He needed to stay focused on what he'd just done to Scully; not veer off course by thinking about what Scully's death would mean for him.

Scully stood up, rearranging the slipping towel.

"Scully…what I did," he tried again.

She reached up, patting his bare chest. "You didn't do anything, Mulder. Other than barrel your way into this bathroom, when I just wanted to vomit in peace." She shook her head, "Bull in a china shop, Mulder. Like always."

Her hand slipped from his chest and he wanted to reach out to her. Stop her from leaving the room. Tell her with his touch what he couldn't say with his words. But, he let her slip away.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Agents Mulder and Scully sat in front of A.D. Skinner delivering their final report on the Hornsby case.

"Good work, agents."

Scully shifted in her seat. She never liked taking credit for something someone else had accomplished. Without her. Completely without her. Lab work—that was just a bunch of hoo-ha cooked up to keep her at home.

"Agent Mulder did all the heavy lifting on this one, sir," she corrected Skinner. 'Not that you aren't aware of that,' she added to herself.

Skinner's eyes darted back and forth to the two agents in front of him. He was trying to get a read on them. Scully was cognizant of the fact that Skinner was on to them. He knew this unseemly case had played out irregularly due to some personal issues they were dealing with. But, he didn't know how to handle it. Skinner didn't do well with inter-personal relations. They couldn't depend on him to deliver pleasant platitudes about relationships, communication, and trust—that's what the Bureau psychologist was for and Mulder had pissed her off to the point where there was very little hope of help there. Besides, Walter Skinner couldn't keep his own marriage together, so Scully didn't expect that he'd have the magic solution for his two stubborn agents. He probably would rather he didn't know anything about it, but their issues had become his thanks to their partnership.

There would be no Scully and Mulder—naked or otherwise—without the FBI; They had taken her ova, They had given her cancer, They had killed her sister, and They had played matchmaker. Scully had mused with Mulder in the not so distant past about the concept of the Consortium as their own personal dating service replete with free bonuses like abductions, lies, and Krycek. He'd seemed undisturbed by the notion that they'd been brought together by such forces, but acknowledged that, 'The Consortium made for an unusual _shadchan_.' Not one his grandmother would have endorsed. Maybe it didn't bother Mulder, but if she thought too much about it, it made her skin crawl.

"The Albuquerque office was impressed, Mulder," Skinner finally responded. "Not one, but two cases solved in less than a week."

"It was a regular profiling case with some useful evidence thrown in," Mulder replied dismissively. "Any other cases you're going to be sending our way?"

That was Mulder's way of asking whether he could get back to investigating crop circles, ghosts, and monsters. Scooby-doo case-work was more interesting to him than delving into the dark mind of a man who could murder his own little girls. Scully couldn't really blame him for that.

"Not at the moment," Skinner said, closing the file on the Hornsby girls.

Scully wondered if the closing of these cases could bring Peggy Hornsby any peace. Peggy had lost everything: her little girls, her husband, and probably her sanity. How does someone go on after something like that? It made her recent problems seem like small potatoes.

Exiting the AD's office, Scully felt Mulder's hand slip into the small of her back. It was about as much physical contact as they'd exchanged since yesterday morning when she'd broken up their session of lovemaking so she could 'worship at the altar of the porcelain god,' as Mulder was fond of calling it. She'd set up an invisible barrier around herself that shouted as loudly at him as yellow police tape. She needed to prevent him from touching her, and she knew he'd sense her reserve and respect it, because he was just as embarrassed as she was.

Generally, there was a lack of self-consciousness when she made love to Mulder. It was one of the nicer things she'd discovered about sex of late: it could be entirely comfortable. That wasn't a compliment she could share with Mulder, because the male psyche wants to hear things more remarkable than 'comfortable,' but the revelation was truly a gift beyond measure. Her brain could shut off. She'd never been able to do that before, because she'd never been truly comfortable…in her own skin, in the moment, with the other person. She'd always been so self-conscious and so busy intellectualizing the act that she'd never been able to relax and fully enjoy it with someone who knew what they were doing. Mulder knew what he was doing. And he made her feel comfortable: as if she was more than just acceptable for the moment—as if she was everything.

Chucking Mulder to the mattress so she could dash to the bathroom had shot her comfort level to hell, however. 'That's the definition of sexy,' she thought with a smirk as they entered the elevator together.

If only the quick cycles of involuntary contractions in her lower pelvic muscles that Mulder had so thoughtfully induced hadn't triggered the contraction of her abdominal muscles and the urge to retch, it would have been a really pleasurable experience. As usual. Pleasurable was the only word she could safely use to describe their encounters in the bedroom without veering mentally off the track of professionalism while they were ensconced in the Hoover Building, but there were plenty of others adjectives she would have happily dwelt upon given the chance.

Mulder was really such a thoughtful lover. Intensity of focus paired with a need to please. Probably a fair amount of practice at some point in the past as well. That thought didn't make her as jealous as it might have in the past, given that she was now the sole recipient of the bounty of his experience. Well, maybe just a little bit jealous.

She glanced up at him sideways as the elevator stopped on the basement floor, taking in the outline of his jaw, which was not as stiffly set as it had been this morning. A pat on the back about their work on the Hornsby case had eased his nerves somewhat, but he still was convinced she'd thrown up because he was a lousy lover. Or something along those self-defeating lines. As if he'd forgotten the hundreds of times she'd left faint marks on his back and _not_ gotten up to throw up afterwards.

'Impossible man,' she thought as fondly as one can muster up regard for the fragile male ego.

If only things were as smooth outside of the bedroom as they were in it, they wouldn't have any problems.

"I've already got a case in mind for us, Scully," he said.

His continuing enthusiasm bubbled under the surface, making his hazel eyes twinkle in what should have been the unflattering light of the fluorescents overhead.

'What will it be this time, Mulder? What's turned your head?'

This was Mulder in his element. Saying the right thing while she was collapsing in on herself was not.

"It came over the AP wire," he explained, opening the office door and holding it for her as she walked in.

"I suppose that's got to be better than the _National Enquirer_," Scully acknowledged as she walked towards her table.

"We've gotten some good stuff from the _Enquirer_," he said with a wink.

"Riiight," Scully said sarcastically, as she watched Mulder walk to his computer and lean over the keyboard.

"Here," he said, tapping away at the keys.

The printer came to life and she walked over to it, pulling out the print-out of a story time stamped from eleven the previous morning. She scanned the article.

_A mysterious boom and light occurred over the skies of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Va., on Sunday night, but just what caused the phenomenon is still unknown._

_Calls from local residents to 911 began coming in at around 9:45 p.m. EDT, with some people reporting their doors and windows rattled when the boom went off, according to reports from WVEC-TV._

"I don't like where this is headed, Mulder," Scully said with a sigh, looking over the print-out at her partner, who was lounging in his chair and chewing on a sunflower seed, waiting for her assessment.

"Where would you say it's going, Scully?" he asked innocently.

"Alien space ships?" she asked drily.

He looked at her with simulated shock—brows knit together, eyes large, and mouth gaping a half inch—as if he had never heard something so preposterous in all his life. "It says no such thing."

"No, it says _meteors_."

He propped his elbows up, lacing his fingers together. "Mmm, so what's the problem?"

"Similar reports in the past often have turned out to involve meteors, which can explode in the atmosphere to create a loud noise and bright flash of light that streak across the sky," she read aloud from the article.

"_And_?"

"And what, Mulder?"

"Keep reading."

"However, often times the source of events like this are not determined," Scully read, her voice trailing off at the end.

"Unexplained phenomena, Scully."

"Meteors, Mulder."

"Norfolk is just a hop, skip, and a jump away, Scully. A day trip," he said with a smile.

"And what exactly are we going to _do_ in Norfolk?"

"Talk to the natives."

She crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the trash. "Says they already have. No one at Norfolk International reported anything out of the ordinary. The meteorologists didn't note anything either."

"Local law enforcement was flooded with calls though. Strange, don't you think? Folks all calling in at the same time to report something no authorities can verify?"

"Maybe the men in black all came in and erased people's memories with their…" she paused, trying to think of the term while she held up her pointer finger to imitate Tommy Lee Jone's action of erasing memories with a push of a button.

"Neutralyzers."

"Yes, that must be it," she replied sarcastically

"I love it when you talk conspiracy," he replied huskily with a waggle of his brows.

Brushing off his overtones, Scully continued, "It was probably a military plane then. That's a militarily impacted area, Mulder. That would explain any reticence on the part of the authorities to explain what people heard or saw."

She stood hands on hips, watching Mulder ponder her solution to his little mystery. He rubbed his chin and bit his lower lip.

"You're probably right, Scully. It says in the article you just trashed that they're in contact with the military and other government agencies to determine the cause. You know how well that will go."

Scully continued to stand, watching him and refusing to budge. "Meteors."

"Strange that they need to talk to the military about meteors."

"Strange that you would want to talk to the natives about meteors," she quipped.

"Look, I figure we either head to Norfolk or…we spend the day going over those expense reports I've been putting off."

She dropped her hands to her sides. "You haven't started those expense reports yet?"

"Haven't touched them."

"We'll be here…"

"All night," he completed her thought for her.

"All night…" she echoed dejectedly. "Fine," she said walking towards the door and grabbing her coat. "I choose the radio station."

"Deal," Mulder said scampering out of his chair to follow her.

"And where we eat lunch," she bartered, holding onto the doorknob.

"Whatever you want, G-woman."

Author's Note:

'Mystery Flash and Big Boom Rattles Virginia' came across the AP wire Monday March 30th at 11:00 am ET. It screamed X-Files to me, so I've quoted shamelessly from the article.

And a _shadchan _is a Jewish matchmaker, if that wasn't abundantly clear.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"I was watching my program when I heard the bang. That's when I looked up and saw the light in the sky. It lit up everything over my neighbor's house there. Like the Fourth of July. See?" the woman asked, gesturing out her family room window and over the neighbor's roof. "Just like a big white light in the sky," she explained. "My Biscuit, here," she said, leaning down to pat the head of her old mutt, "he heard it too. Shook the windows like we were having an earthquake. 'Cept, we don't have earthquakes here."

Scully blew air through her hair to get the wayward strands that had migrated in front of her line of vision out of her face. This was the same story they'd heard four times today. The only story that was different was the report of the air-traffic controller, who hadn't seen or heard anything: no bang, no flash of light. Mulder was dead-set on visiting the local Wavy-News television meteorologist next, so maybe they'd get a third version to spice things up a bit.

"Mrs. Woods did you experience anything else out of the ordinary that evening?" Mulder asked.

"Nothing that I recall. I did call into the police station after what I'd seen. I suppose you know that though. They probably gave you my name."

"Was there any accompanying electric phenomenon?"

"Hmm?" the woman asked.

"Did you lose power? The lights flicker? Clocks stop?"

'Did you lose time,' Scully wanted to supply for her partner. It was what he was getting at after all. If he got to the point, they could leave. Maybe paint an 'X' in spray-paint in this woman's driveway if she was really lucky.

"Nothing like that," she said with a shake of the head. The woman looked disappointed, as if she could tell the agent before her was hoping for a different answer. She obviously wanted to please the nice gentleman, who was showing an interest in her little story of lights and sounds. "Is it what I think it was?" she asked suspiciously.

"What do you think it was, Mrs. Woods?" Scully asked blandly.

"Terrorists," she whispered. "I thought maybe the government didn't want us to know. To panic."

Scully could have just groaned: was the whole country now subscribers to conspiracy theories? "No terrorism, Mrs. Woods. I can assure you of that."

"The threat level is orange," the woman insisted.

Scully ducked her head down, pinching the bridge of her nose. Telling people such things as threat levels in rainbow coding only produced hysteria paired with little useful action. What was this woman supposed to be on guard for anyway? She wouldn't know the difference between a meteor and a Scud missile if it was headed for her front door.

"After you spoke with the police, did anyone come here to talk to you? Any men? Government agents, perhaps?" Mulder probed undeterred.

"Just you two," the woman shrugged.

"You've been very helpful, Mrs. Woods," Scully said, nodding at Mulder. "We'll let you get back to your day. Thank you." Mulder seemed as if he wasn't going to leave, so Scully cleared her throat. "Agent Mulder?"

"Here's my card, Mrs. Woods. If you remember anything else, please call."

The slap of the screen door behind them caused Scully to flinch beneath her black suit coat. The heat was unbearable even though it was already October. Summer wasn't giving up without a fight in Virginia and there was little that could be said for Virginia weather in the summer. Hot, humid, and buggy: it was no wonder the first colonists dropped like flies. She felt like she might do the same. This little trip was not helping her feel her best.

"Well, Mulder," Scully said, pulling on the passenger side car door handle, "we're not getting anywhere. Are you bored yet?"

"Patience, Scully," Mulder said with a smirk.

"I'm running out, Mulder," Scully admitted, buckling up. She reached for the now warm bottle of water in the console cup-holder, unscrewed the cap, and gratefully swallowed. "Let's go home."

"Just Wavy-News," he promised, putting the car in gear.

"What do you think you'll get out of that, Mulder?"

"You never know until you ask," he replied with a shrug.

"We both know it was a meteorite. A meteor that is in now pieces at the bottom of the Chesapeake."

"That's your scientific opinion?"

"Yes. It has been since you showed me the article."

He knew this. And she was fairly certain he was in agreement with her. This was some kind of farce. Or he thought it might be good for them. Like paranormal medicine. Get the collaborative partner juices flowing so that they might serve as a jolt of adrenaline to their faltering personal relationship? Because, swapping fluids wasn't doing it anymore.

"You don't want to interview the meteorologist?" he asked, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel.

"No." She shifted in the seat awkwardly. "Mulder, I might need you to pull over."

"What's wrong?" he asked, his head swiveling as if it was on a stick to give her his attention.

"Eyes on the road," she reminded him. "I am hoping not to get sick," she confessed.

"You're still not feeling well?" he asked, putting on his blinker.

"Just too much driving in the heat today."

He nodded, pulling over in a widened shoulder and putting his hazards on. She could sense the tension rolling off of him in waves: her feeling unwell was making him nervous, but she didn't have the energy to calm him down with measured assurances that she would be alright—that she was fine. It was all she could do to keep from getting sick.

"We can get something cool to drink up at the next exit. Rest for awhile," he offered. "We'll go home…"

She missed the end of his statement as she yanked open the door and bent out of the car, emptying her stomach of its contents.

…

"You said it would be a day trip."

"I wasn't planning on your getting sick, Scully," Mulder said, trying to control his temper.

"Sorry to inconvenience you," she responded stiffly, staring ahead through the windshield at the brick wall of the motel.

"I'm just trying to reason through this. We sat for nearly two hours in Famous Uncle Al's. I can't drink one more glass of iced tea while you camp out in the bathroom. I think I'm half a glass away from over-hydration."

"So, let's go home."

Mulder adjusted the AC, seeing that there were beads of sweat forming on Scully's upper lip.

"You know it's going to be hell on I-95 at this time of day. We'll be sitting nose to ass for a few hours…and that's not factoring in the extra time spent pulling over on the shoulder every ten minutes."

"I'm fine. I can make it without getting sick."

Mulder knew that was a blatant lie, if the brief drives to Uncle Al's or this parking lot were any indication.

"So, these are our choices. I can take you to the hospital. We can fight our way back to Washington. Or we can check into this lovely establishment…let you rest."

"Uncle Al's serves hotdogs, Mulder."

He knit his brow. She wasn't making sense.

"You don't take someone to a hotdog place when they're feeling nauseated."

"I missed that in the manual," he said tapping the steering wheel nervously. "You're calling the shots, so tell me what to do. If I had my way, you'd be on an IV drip right now."

"Fine," she responded, her lips whitening as she pressed them together.

Too bad 'fine' didn't actually let him know what she'd decided. Her motion to unbuckle her seatbelt, however, was more informative. Apparently they were staying.

"I don't have anything packed," she said as she opened her car door.

"I'll run to CVS or Target or something," he said slamming his door shut. He walked around the car and put his arm around her. "You'll feel better if you take a shower. Crank the AC down really low." He grabbed the lobby door. "I'll even let you hold the remote."

"That should make me right as rain," Scully deadpanned.

"Good afternoon," the young woman with long stringy blond hair standing behind the counter said, sizing them up.

It probably wasn't every day that a couple dressed in suits entered through these doors. It wasn't cheap enough to be a by the hour rendezvous spot or nice enough to host business types. They were an anomaly—not an unusual position for them to be in.

"We're going to need a room," Mulder said, reaching in his back pocket for his wallet.

Scully looked up at him, her eyes grown wide, as if he'd grown a second head. "Two rooms," she corrected him firmly.

The girl looked up from her computer with some interest at what appeared to be a more fascinating development than just a pair of middle aged business associates engaged in un-business-like activities in the late afternoon. The lady appeared not to be willing to share a room or share a bed.

"One will be fine," Mulder insisted, pulling out his credit card. "This one's on me, Scully," he said with a wink.

If it wasn't on the Bureau's dime, he didn't see why he couldn't rent one room, so he could keep an eye on her without the subterfuge of adjacent rooms.

"We're on a case," Scully whispered angrily.

The girl continued to watch with evident curiosity in the debate unfolding before her.

"Ma'am," Mulder said to her, "charge the card."

"Yes, sir."

Scully folded her arms across her chest. Mulder could tell that she was furious. She had strict rules about keeping business and pleasure separate. Apparently, in her book stopping in a motel to spend the evening puking fell under the 'pleasure' category, so he should be safely ensconced in a separate room so the FBI didn't think something was amiss.

"Just the one night?" the girl asked.

"Yes."

"King, two queens, doubles, twins?" she asked, smacking her gum between options.

"King."

Mulder could feel Scully rolling her eyes at him even if she refused to let him see her face.

"'kay, it's out the door on your left. Room 108."

"Perfect. Thanks," he said, taking the dangling key from the young woman.

"Have a nice stay," she said with a mocking smile.

'No, I'm not getting laid,' Mulder agreed with the girl silently.

"We're on a case," Scully hissed once more at him as the lobby door swung closed behind them and they reentered the fading heat of the afternoon.

"What case? You said that there are chunks of a meteorite sinking to the bottom of the Chesapeake as we speak. That doesn't sound like a case," he said, ushering her towards the sea blue door marked '108.'

He jammed the key in the door and gave it a good rattle before it popped open. He flipped on the lights and walked in. Perfectly serviceable—and it didn't smell like cigarettes. Generally that was just a bonus, but right now it was a necessity, given that any offending odor made Scully nauseated.

Scully stood in the doorway as he fiddled with the AC until it kicked on with a clatter.

"You going to come in?" he asked exasperated. "Or quote from the conduct manual?"

"If this isn't a case, what are you going to say…that we left the building on a lark? Paid vacation? We're on the clock, Mulder."

"I'm not going to say _anything_. There's no reason anyone should know about this," he insisted, throwing the car keys down on the dresser. "I bet you were a hall monitor when you were a kid," he said, shrugging off his coat and jerking at his tie.

Scully narrowed her eyes at him before walking to the bed and collapsing into it without removing any of her clothing. He grabbed the pad of paper by the telephone and dug in the drawer for a ballpoint pen.

"Here," he said, handing the items to her. "Make a list of everything you need."

She took them from him and began to scribble down a list in the supine position as he pulled her heels off and sat on the edge of the bed so he could massage her feet.

"Better?" he asked.

"Mmm…" she mumbled.

"Anything else I can do to make you feel better?"

"Don't come on to me," she instructed him, mistaking his tone of helpfulness for something else.

"I'm not. My timing is bad, but not that bad, Scully. Give me some credit."

She mumbled something as he worked a pressure point in her left foot.

"You want me to bring you back something to eat?"

"Maybe some soup."

"Chicken and stars?" he teased.

"Too much sodium," she said with a soft sigh.

Scully didn't allow him to come to the grocery store with her, because he liked to toss things in the cart that were deemed 'too' something. Too fatty. Too sugary. Too salty. Too tasty.

"You want some help getting in the shower? I can control my ardor, you know," he said, glancing over his shoulder at her as he continued to rub the arches of her feet.

He could control himself. He'd done it for seven years. And at this moment she looked inhumanely pale. He didn't want her to slip in the bathroom. He wanted to scoop her up and wrap her in a blanket. Plant kisses on her forehead and feed her whatever healthy mush she wanted.

"I'm just going to soak in the tub."

"Alright. I'll be back in a flash," he said, picking up the discarded list she'd completed from the bedspread. He lingered for a moment, reaching down to brush a strand of her hair off of her clammy skin. "I had a crush on the hall monitor," he said softly before leaning down to kiss her forehead.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Mulder unlocked the motel door, clasping several plastic bags in his hand at once as he jimmied the lock. He hadn't just gotten everything on the list: he'd gotten everything he could think of that might make Scully feel better or bring a smile to her face. The door finally popped open and he pushed inside, noting the lack of light in the room and surveying the bed. The covers were not rumpled: Scully was neither in bed nor had she been in bed. The bathroom door was ajar, but no light came from within.

"Scully?" he called hesitantly as fear crept over him.

No answer came and he dropped the bags at his feet, walking back towards the bathroom.

"Scully?" he said once more, opening the bathroom door wide and finding no one inside.

He flipped on the bathroom lights, as if the illumination might cause her to appear in a darkened corner. No Scully, but draped across the vanity was a blood-stained white hotel towel. He picked it up and discovered it was still damp. It wasn't a lot of blood—just a smear of darkening red against the grayish-white of the weave—but it was enough to set his heart racing.

CANCER.

Was she having nosebleeds again? Had she been keeping it from him, like before? How long had she been having them? How long until he was left alone in this world?

Was this what a heart attack felt like?

Panic attack?

He backed out of the bathroom, dropping the towel onto the floor.

And where the fuck was she?

He spun around, looking at the room with an eye to detail. There was no sign of a struggle. Scully didn't let people whisk her away without delivering a few swift kicks at very least. He should see an overturned chair, a broken lamp, mussed sheets, something, but everything was just as he'd left it, except for a humid bathroom, bloodied towel, and no Scully.

He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and hit the speed dial. As he pressed the phone to his ear, to his dismay he heard the ring of her phone not only in his ear, but also on the bedside table. She'd left her phone. Or she hadn't had a chance to grab it, as she was being dragged from the motel. And half-dead with cancer.

Pressing the 'off' button, Mulder stood rooted to the floor and stared at the blank LCD display on his phone.

"Do I call in a missing person?" he asked the empty room.

It hadn't been twenty-four hours.

Skinner maybe? That would lead to some awkward explanations.

'Scully and I rented a motel this afternoon in Norfolk, and while I was out buying her soup and ice cream and a new hair brush to replace the one I stepped on the other day, bending the bristles, she disappeared. I have a bloodied towel and an abandoned cell phone. Send help.'

'What were we doing in a motel room in Norfolk? I told the hall monitor I wouldn't tell,' he thought, running his left hand through his hair.

He walked to the motel room's phone and picked up the receiver, dialing '9' for the front desk. He recognized the voice of the blonde when she answered after five rings—probably more than the manager would have liked, Mulder guessed, and four too many rings in his current panicked state.

"This is room 108. I was wondering if you'd seen my partner…petite redhead. If she came into the lobby or you might have noticed her getting into a car?"

Bound and gagged perhaps? With a gun to her head?

"No, sir. Last I saw her was when you took the keys from me."

Mulder sunk onto the mattress, still gripping the phone, but not knowing what to say. His brain was beginning to feel as if the oxygen was being cut off.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asked, sounding as if she couldn't wait to relay this newest development in the strangers' story to whoever would be coming to relieve her for the night shift.

"Just call me in the room if you happen to see her," Mulder said, hanging up before he could get a reply.

Mulder looked up when he heard the door squeaking on its hinges. Scully's form was backlit by the sun setting behind her.

"You left the door open," Scully said, coming in and shutting the door behind her.

He was so stunned that he couldn't respond. He continued to sit on the edge of the mattress, staring at her blankly. The tips of her hair were still wet and she was dressed in her skirt and blouse. Her face was serene: no sign of having recently been kidnapped.

"I was about to call in the cavalry," he finally managed to say, as he watched her pick up the bags he'd discarded on the floor.

"What do you mean?"

"You were gone. I came back and you were gone."

"I went for a walk," she responded matter-of-factly.

"You have been throwing up all afternoon. When I left, you were stretched out on this bed looking like you could barely move. And then you _went for a walk_?"

"No, I soaked in the tub for a little bit and was feeling better. I thought fresh air might be good for me with the temperature dropping a little bit."

"That's fucked up."

"A walk is fucked up?" she demanded angrily, sifting through the bag's contents and refusing to look at him.

"No, going out when you've been sick and not even leaving me a note. Not taking your phone. I thought something had happened to you."

Mulder saw her roll her eyes, as if he was being ridiculous.

"You want to explain the towel you left in the bathroom?"

If she couldn't explain why she continually refused to take him into consideration, she might as well do him the courtesy of telling him if she was about to drop dead.

She stood upright, holding the Styrofoam container that contained the soup-to-go he'd selected at the grocery store. "I don't know what you're talking about." Her blank face seemed to confirm her claims of ignorance.

"I found blood on the towel you were using."

"You're really putting your investigative skills to use while we're on this non-case," she sarcastically replied, opening the top of the container and digging in the bag for the plastic spoon.

Mulder breathed in slowly, trying to keep his cool. "Did you have a nosebleed?"

She set the spoon down, looking shocked. "I cut myself shaving."

"I just had to buy you a razor at the store. So, where did you get a razor?"

"There's a vending machine at the end of the corridor with toiletry packs."

Mulder dropped his head into his hands. None of this made any sense. He came back. She was gone. There was a bloody towel. But, now he was being made to believe it was nothing more than a late afternoon jaunt after an unfortunate shaving job with a cheap motel toiletry pack razor.

"Mulder," she said, her voice softening, "I'm alright."

"No, you're not. You've been sick for days. And you won't let me help. You can't even leave me a note." His voice shook with desperation.

"I just wanted some fresh air. I didn't think you'd beat me back to the room."

"But that's not what this is about," he said dejectedly, lifting his head and fixing her with a look. "Tell me it's not."

She set the soup container down. "You want me to admit to something, and I don't know what that is, Mulder."

"Admit that you don't want me to help. You don't want to let me in. Admit that you're not happy. Admit one goddamn time that you are not _fine_," he said, balling his fists tightly and gritting his teeth.

Her blues eyes stared back at him, but he couldn't read what lay behind them. For a moment he thought she might calmly gather up her things and walk out. He felt as if he'd been preparing for that moment for months, so it might as happen in this sad motel in Norfolk.

"I'm not happy," she said evenly.

Well, there it was. The admission he'd wanted. The admission he'd feared. He couldn't make her happy. It was the greatest failure of his life.

"What can I do?" he asked, his voice cracking.

She shook her head, as if she didn't have an answer.

"I've been trying, Scully. Really trying."

Was she even aware of the effort he'd been making? He was trying to be more attuned to the way his flights of fancy affected her. Trying not to tilt at windmills every time he heard the clatter of armor calling to him in the distance. The cause was a shared one at this point, but Scully still strained at the thought that it came at the cost of her personal life. He'd been trying to make sure that wasn't the case. She couldn't be a mother, but he'd tried to be enough.

"So, tell me what you want me to do," he insisted.

If she could be happy with him, he'd do whatever she instructed him to do. He'd let her flay him into pieces with her scalpel, if it guaranteed that she would be content to be with him.

Scully licked her lips, considering carefully. "Every morning I wake up feeling as if my horizons have been constricted."

"What a compliment," he bit back.

He wanted to tell her that his heart was bleeding on the floor for her to do with what she liked. But, how do you say that to someone who can't even tell you how they feel? Her reserve used to keep him safe: safe from rejection, safe from humiliation, safe from professional suicide. Now her reserve left him as the only participant in their relationship.

"I'm having trouble feeling for my boundaries. Defining who I am. Who we're supposed to be. I don't know, Mulder. I'm confused."

He worried the roof of his mouth with his tongue, watching her intently.

"And I'm going to be sick again," she announced, turning pale and heading for the bathroom.

She pulled the door closed behind her, leaving him alone in the room with her cooling soup and melting ice cream. He was shut out again.

He had a choice to make. He could hold tight and take the chance of squeezing the life out of whatever they had left. Or he could walk.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Three months, two weeks, and four days. That's how many months, weeks, and days it had been since he'd heard Dana Scully murmur—I love you—to him. His eidetic memory kept a painfully accurate record of just how long it had been. He knew roughly what hour it'd had been too, but his stomach protested when his brain quickly began the mental calculations necessary to gauge the hours, minutes, and seconds. It was three months, two weeks, and four days too many: that's all he needed to know.

He'd gone thirty-nine years without hearing those words from Scully's rosebud mouth, but once he had, he was sunk. He wanted her to say it every day. To have trouble holding it in like the exuberant and innocent teenaged girl he imagined she'd once been. To say it to him when they were curled up on the couch watching old science fiction movies and the aliens reminded her of animated tin cans. To whisper it into his neck when he leaned down to say goodbye at airport gates. To scribble it between beer and yogurt on the grocery list stuck to the white refrigerator. To say it with a broad smile when he failed miserably to impress her on any dozen of pathetic occasions.

But he'd settled for 'I love you's' said in the throes of passion. That's when she'd first said it and every time thereafter. Even three months, two weeks, and four days ago it had been in the midst of a particularly animated afternoon session of x-rated bedroom Twister. There was something nauseating about the fact that she wouldn't say it unless she was underneath him.

Nevertheless, once she'd said it, he couldn't live without it. He needed her to say it again—now more than ever. He scratched at the tanned skin of his forearm, halfway certain that if he scratched away this top layer of his epidermis only a bundle of twitching insecurities and self-incrimination would be left for the world to see. He needed her to say it, so his outer layer wouldn't slough off like yesterday's sunburn, exposing the soft pink sensitive skin underneath.

He looked up from his useless scratching to track her movements around the apartment. She was keeping busy doing nothing, just as she'd been busy in the car driving back from Norfolk this morning and busy doing more nothing in the office all afternoon. He wondered how long she could keep this act up. She still looked pale, so it must be at least somewhat unpleasant to maintain this charade of June Cleaver-like industriousness. She looked like she'd rather be soaking in a tub, but the threat that he'd take that as an invitation to ask questions like—are you okay, Scully?—probably kept her moving around the room like a bumblebee with no flower to light upon.

"You already dusted that," he said, catching her off-guard with his lifeless revelation.

She stood up with her dusting rag in one hand and the other perched on her hip.

"Caught red-handed," he murmured, pushing himself out of the chair and sidling up to her in just a few long strides.

Standing behind her, he ran his hands down her biceps. She stood rigid and unmoving. Leaning over her shoulder, so that his chest pressed against her shoulder blades, he could hear her breath coming in shallow quick puffs.

"Did you come over to help dust?" she asked flatly.

"No, you were doing a fine job." He paused, waiting to see if she would pull away. "Is this okay?" he asked hoarsely, speaking into the silkiness of her red hair.

Her answer came in the form of an uncertain nod.

He turned her around and pulled her firmly against him, but she stared straight forward into the cotton of his shirt, still feeling stiff in his embrace. He nudged her chin with his index finger, tilting it upward so he could see her clear blue eyes. He could drown in their depths, but he had to focus on his objective: _he was going to make her say it_.

"Are you feeling better today?" he asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

"Mmmhmm," she hummed back in the affirmative, as he stroked the back of her neck and lingered at her carotid pulse, taking note of its accelerated flutter beneath the tip of his fingers.

"Good," he whispered back, kissing her forehead and smoothing back the hair from her temples. "That's good," he reiterated, placing a trail of slow kisses down her neck.

He could feel her muscles begin to give up the fight, and she molded herself closer to him. It was pleasant to feel the outline of her body against his—soft and small—but he couldn't quite concentrate on the sensation with his brain buzzing: three months, two weeks, and four days.

'Goddamn it.' If he could help it, she was going to say it.

"Put the rag down," he commanded softly, stroking her back through the fabric of her blouse.

She was still holding the worthless thing, dangling from the fingertips she held against his chest. He could smell the lemony Endust, when all he wanted to smell was her skin.

Blinking her way out of the fog, Scully pursed her lips, regaining the ability to bite back sarcastically. "Maybe you'd better go back to watching me, so I can finish cleaning this place up."

"Asking me to watch you is only inducement for me to continue in my unhelpful ways," he reminded her, as he unbuttoned the top button on her blouse and ran his index finger along her collar bone.

Scully turned slightly in his arms and dropped the rag on the table she'd been about to dust for the second time that day.

"I like to watch you do your Suzy Homemaker routine," he teased before nibbling her ear.

"That's barbaric of you, Mulder," she protested, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.

"I'm about to drag you back to my cave."

Scully sighed against him, leaning into his embrace.

"You must be hot," he mused against the skin below her ear, as he blindly continued to unbutton the buttons on her blouse. She felt hot to the touch and she tasted a bit like salt. "Come with me," he said, slipping his hand into hers, "I'll turn the air down," he promised.

He took a step towards away from her, but her hand slipped from his. Perhaps she wasn't going to follow him, but he was going to turn the air down, nonetheless. He walked over towards the bedroom door, where the thermostat was conveniently mounted on the wall, and turned the air down to seventy-five degrees, since the apartment was refusing to cool down from the unusually warm October they were experiencing. He looked down at the shadowed figure that had silently appeared at his elbow. She reached up, batting his hand away.

"Cooler," she commanded, setting the temperature down another two degrees.

"Fine with me. You're the one that's always cold," he said, pulling her through the bedroom door.

"It can't possibly be cool enough," she said with a sigh.

"Then you should have changed out of these clothes," he observed, pulling her close once more and running his hand down her back to the top of the band of her pencil skirt.

But she'd been too busy pretending to be busy to change. And he'd been too busy uneasily observing her to change out of his wilted clothes either. He tugged at the zipper on the skirt, sliding it down. Her skirt fell in a puddle at their feet and she was left standing in an open blouse, panties, and bra.

"Lay down, I'll give you a back rub," he said, giving her a squeeze before directing her towards the bed with light pressure on the small of her back.

All of Scully was lovely, but he had great affection for the small of her back, seeing as it was the first part of her he had conquered many years ago. Resting his hand in the small of her back—barely wider than his hand itself—was the first way he could safely touch her before his arms had ever wrapped themselves around her or his lips had pressed against her forehead. It was a gesture of protectiveness on a good day; a gesture of ownership on one of his less evolved days.

"Your massages always turn into something else," she half-heartedly griped as she arranged herself on the bed.

"So what if they do?" he asked, joining her. "I thought you were rather fond of my something else."

Scully turned her face on the pillow so that he could see her smirk. "A little more effort on the massage this time is all I'm asking."

He brushed her hair away from her neck and began to kneed the tense muscles in her shoulders. "Whatever you want, Scully."

Scully mumbled something into the pillow that was unintelligible.

He knew what he wanted.

He worked the muscles on her upper body, focusing on the tightened bunch of muscles he found in between her shoulder blades. This knot of tension was due to him. It was due to them. It was physical evidence, such as Scully was always in search of, in the purest form. She didn't earn it chasing after a monster or slicing bodies. All they'd done was ring doorbells, take meteorite story accounts, and fight. The least he could do was to help her work the kinks out.

"Oomph," Scully mouthed into the pillow.

"Too hard?" he asked, changing the pressure he was applying.

He could be clumsy with his hands. Not like his partner with her surgical precision and delicate fingers.

Scully moved under his touch, twisting around on the bed to face him and looking up at him blankly.

"Was I hurting you?"

"No, it was just right," she assured him, reaching up to grab his shirt and pull him down towards her on the mattress.

"I wasn't finished."

"I'm moving on to _something else_, Mulder," she informed him matter-of-factly, as she laced her fingers behind his head and pulled his lips to hers for a kiss.

Mulder immediately felt his inner coils begin to slowly unwind as his tension ebbed away with the melting of her lips against his. He was made suddenly conscious of the fact that Scully was rather scantily dressed and pressed against him, while he still wore his business clothes. He reached up to begin unbuttoning his shirt, but Scully batted his hand away, as she'd done at the thermostat some minutes earlier.

"Feeling aggressive today, Scully?" he teased, his lips bumping hers as he spoke.

She failed to respond, being engrossed in pushing him onto his back and unbuttoning his shirt. He swallowed, quickly losing his sense of control as he felt her fingertips brush the band on his slacks. This was not typical Scully and it wasn't what he was expecting when he'd decided to seduce her. Somehow the seducer had become the seduced.

Scully was an equal participant in their sexual relationship, but Scully was very rarely the aggressor. He figured he gave her little opportunity to be so, however, considering that he was always inspired.

'Inspired,' he thought with a snort, tipping his head back as she laid a trail of kisses against his neck and now exposed chest.

'More like hard up, lustful, aroused, randy, libidinous, lascivious, and oversexed.'

He could run through every synonym he could come up with for 'horny,' but it didn't change the descriptor.

He licked his lips as Scully pushed aside his open shirt for better access to a patch of skin she was focusing on. He was losing command of this situation. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to think clearly in spite of Scully's attentions.

Scully was closed off. She was difficult to penetrate.

'Damn,' he thought. That's exactly what he'd like to be doing right now. Best to produce a different word from his ample vocabulary.

Scully was difficult to breach. She had perimeter walls a mile high. It took years to break them down and she still had border guards posted. The only way he could ever get her to truly expose herself was to connect with her on a purely physical level. He was well aware that Scully's enjoyment of sex was largely tied to her being able to lose control, stop thinking, and let someone else take over for that short period of time.

But right now she was fully in control. Something was driving her to take charge. She would never say it like this.

And yet. This wasn't the usual Scully, but it wasn't bad either. Under different circumstances, he wouldn't mind lying back while she manhandled him. That it was novel and so gratifying made it all the more difficult to attempt to stop her. If he could shut his mind down entirely, he might be content to believe that this was evidence that she wanted him desperately. Even if she didn't love him.

Half outside of his body, Mulder heard the clink of his belt buckle. The tug of the leather around his waist brought him back to reality and he stayed her hand with what little restraint he had left.

"Stop," he commanded her.

Scully lifted her head to look up at him with her mouth slightly open.

"What?" she asked breathily.

He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her onto her back, reversing their respective positions. Despite his new superior posture, it did not immediately put a stop to Scully's directness, as she continued to fumble for his belt. He grabbed her wrists and raised them above her head, pinning them lightly to the pillow.

"I said, stop."

She squirmed slightly beneath him. Her brows were knit in confusion and her lips were pursed. Her movements against his body did nothing to help calm his libido.

"Stop moving," he begged her, speaking into her neck.

She stilled against him and Mulder tried to regain the upper hand once more. Holding her wrists with one hand, he let his other hand travel down the length of her torso, lightly touching the smoothness of her skin as it developed goose bumps. His hand hovered at her upper thigh, waiting for his digits to move, but his hand seemed not to be taking commands from him anymore. He sunk his forehead into the pillow next to her cheek.

"Scully, I need you to say it," he pleaded.

She turned her head, her cheek pressing against his. "Say what, Mulder?" she asked shakily.

"I need you to tell me or I can't do this," he insisted more forcibly.

She tugged her wrists and he readjusted the grip he had on them, preventing her from wriggling free.

"Mulder, let me go," she stated firmly.

"Say it," Mulder said, rising up on his forearms over her.

Her eyes were wide. She watched him silently for a moment before repeating her original question: "Say _what_, Mulder?"

Mulder considered for a half second whether it would do any good to simply tell her what he wanted. If it would heal everything, if he would merely speak his mind. At the moment, his powers of persuasion were clearly compromised. He wasn't going to seduce her tonight and physically trapping her didn't seem to be the best mode either.

"Tell me you love me," he said with a dry swallow. He worked his jaw as he watched her beneath him, her eyes darting back and forth. She looked as if she thought he was insane. 'Maybe I am.'

"Let. Me. Go."


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Mulder rolled off of her, releasing her and scrambling off the bed. He immediately buckled his belt once more and began buttoning his shirt. Scully watched him from the bed, her breathing still coming in rasps.

"What the hell was that about?" she finally managed.

He looked up from the buttons he'd been so carefully buttoning with shaking hands. It was a strange contrast seeing his strong hands nearly fail him.

"That was me trying for the last time," he said, staring back at her with those empty eyes that had looked down on her only moments earlier. "A pretty pathetic attempt, I must admit. My apologies."

"Mulder, you're not making any sense."

An attempt at what? To scare her? He'd come pretty close, and she didn't like the feeling of having Mulder frighten her. Not ever. Particularly not in bed.

He sloppily shoved half of his shirt into the front of his slacks. "I can't pretend enough for the both of us anymore."

Fighting with his shirt, he pulled it back out of his slacks in evident frustration and stalked out of the room.

Scully crawled from the bed, following after him in her state of undress. "Pretend?" she parroted back at him, hoping he would enlighten her as to what had caused him to have a near psychotic breakdown in the middle of their bed.

"Pretend that you love me. That you're here by choice. With me. That we're in love. I'm done faking it," he stated calmly as he reached for the keys on the table by the door.

Scully realized he was about to walk out the door, and she stepped forward, reaching out to touch his arm. It was her intention to soothe him with her touch, but instead, he flinched, as if a spark of electricity had jumped between them.

"Don't," he commanded icily.

She pulled back her hand, looking him up and down. He appeared rigid and defensive. Stiffly ensconced in the wilted remains of the suit he had been wearing for two days, since their jaunt to Norfolk. His hair was sticking up at awkward angles and his shirt, despite the careful attention paid to it, was buttoned crookedly, giving him a somewhat off-kilter appearance that fit his present state of unbalance. She'd smooth his hair down and re-button his shirt, if he'd only let her. She'd smooth the frown lines creasing his face too.

"You make it hard for me when you touch me," he explained quietly, looking down at his stocking feet. "I lose all rational thought."

"This is rational?" she asked in exasperation.

He failed to respond. Scully ran her hand over her eyes, trying to make sense of this moment.

"What exactly is happening, Mulder?" she asked, unable to make heads or tails of it herself.

He turned around, searching for his shoes. "I'm leaving."

Discovering them where he had kicked them off after they'd returned from work, he slid into them without bothering with the laces. She watched him shove his heels into them, while she tried to regulate her breathing. She was at a loss as to what to say to him. He seemed beyond reason.

"I can see that, but where are you going?" she finally asked as he shuffled towards the door.

"My apartment," he responded flatly. "That _was_ the idea, right? Why you made me keep it? So you could send me packing and not feel as guilty about it?" he leaned against the door, watching her coolly.

His hazel eyes belied his practiced air. Mulder was boiling beneath the surface—she could see that much. She only had to press the right buttons to elicit a reaction.

"Let's get one thing clear, Mulder. I'm not sending you packing. If you're leaving, it's because that's what you wanted to do."

She crossed her arms across her chest, trying to shield herself from his appraising glare. She was painfully aware that she was most inadequately attired. It was difficult to argue under those circumstances.

He shook his head, "What _I_ want? It isn't about that anymore."

"Since when?" she asked mockingly.

"I'm well aware that I shoved my way into your life. It didn't work. It was stupid."

Scully sighed heavily. In a way Mulder _had_ forcefully insinuated himself into her life. He'd done it so slowly that sometimes it felt as if she woke up one day and he was lying beside her without her quite knowing how he'd ended up there. As they had trod that path together from reluctant partners to friends, she had on occasion resented his lack of boundaries, but in the end she had come to terms with his presence and grown more than content with the circumstances. She'd grown quite dependent on him long before they'd entered into a romantic relationship. And recently she'd begun to feel like a caged animal. The two competing feelings—dependence and resentment—were not unrelated.

"I used to think," he said, digging in his pockets for something, "that I wasn't worth very much. That I should take whatever I could get. From life. From women. And I did: I took what I could get. Quality was beside the point."

Scully shifted on her feet. She wasn't in the mood for one of Mulder's self-involved monologues.

"The irony of all this is that you were the one that made me feel like somebody. Expect more. Not hate myself. In another life, Scully, what you have to offer would have been more than enough. You should have stumbled upon me when I was a drunk and working my way through the secretarial pool."

"I think not," she replied crisply.

He bit his lip, looking down at her with heavy lids. "You never loved me."

It was a statement of fact. Not a recrimination.

As she was about to protest the lunacy of such a declaration, he turned and grabbed the door knob. She knew she only had a moment to say whatever she could to stop him. She'd seen him in this kind of dark mood before, and she had never felt comfortable leaving him to his own devices when he was enveloped in the darkness. Her heart hammered away in her chest, arguing strenuously with her stubborn side, which was refusing to give in to Mulder's petulant behavior. If she said what he wanted her to say now, she'd only be rewarding his disgraceful conduct. She wouldn't let anyone treat her like that. Especially not Mulder.

She swallowed and reached out once more. She couldn't or wouldn't say it, but if she could only reach out to him.

"Please don't," he whispered.

She pulled back her hand, wrapping her arms around her waist.

"Every time you touch me now, it just reminds me that what we had was all in my head. It's tainted."

Scully wrinkled up her nose, taking a deep breath. "That's it?" she demanded, failing to control her simmering anger from bubbling forth in her accusatory tone.

He opened the door, his knuckles white on the knob. "That's it." He paused to look back over his shoulder at her. "Now would be a good time to cry, if you can even do that anymore."


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

"Three of whatever he's having," a voice announced from over Mulder's shoulder.

It sounded familiar, but in his current haze, he couldn't identify the speaker without looking. Looking would have required turning his head away from his whiskey, so he waited for the speaker to identify himself. No reason to do a job, when someone was bound to do it for you.

Suddenly the barstools on either side of him were occupied.

"Fuck," he whispered into his glass as he tipped it back to his lips. The liquid no longer burned as it ran down his throat. That was what he'd been aiming for several glasses earlier. "How the shit did you find me?"

"It was easy, man," the skinny blonde to the left replied.

"Have you got me tagged, Langley?" Mulder shot back.

"Men are predictable," the squat man to his right responded. "More so than women."

"You speak rather knowledgeably about women, Frohike. I don't think you ever get a sniff," Mulder grumbled, as the bartender handed out the three whiskeys on the rocks.

"Is one of you going to drive him home?" the bartender asked.

"That's what cabs are for," Mulder protested, knocking back another swallow. "So," he continued, setting his mostly empty glass down, "let me get this straight. You predicted I'd be here, because men are predictable? Is that the story? I may be a little more paranoid than normal, but I'm not buying it."

"Scully thought you'd be here," the quieter third man explained.

Mulder fixed Byers with the steadiest gaze he could muster at the moment. "You spoke with Scully?" He swallowed hard, wondering what she'd told them. How she'd sounded.

"She called an hour ago," Langley said, pushing his glasses further up his nose with his index finger. "She said you'd left."

"What the hell are you doing, Einstein?" Frohike asked with a shake of his head.

Mulder wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was clammy and beginning to feel like he was coated with a fine layer of slime. "I should have showered before I split," he mumbled.

"She knows you better than I know Kentares after playing MechWarrior for ten hours today," Langley said, wrinkling his nose up after smelling the whiskey in his glass. "She thought you'd be here."

"That's the finest rail liquor this side of the Potomac, Langley," Mulder promised, swallowing the last spider in his glass and raising his hand for another. He leaned his elbows on the bar to steady himself better, when the act of waving threatened to send him tumbling off his stool. "And she called you fine gentlemen why exactly?" he managed, having reestablished his equilibrium. Frohike and Langley suddenly seemed wrapped up in their glasses. Only Byers met his sloppy stare. "Well?" he asked.

"She said you were acting…unhinged," Byers explained hesitantly.

Mulder nodded in thanks to the bartender's proffered drink. "Makes sense. And I suppose the brains behind this operation has made you my babysitters?"

"Someone has to save you from yourself. You're being a first rate asshole," Frohike grouched.

Mulder didn't bother to challenge that statement. "Do you want my gun, belt, penknife? Or maybe my shoelaces? I could string myself up by my shoelaces," he pondered, sloshing the whiskey around in the glass.

He felt like he'd replayed this moment several times during their partnership. He'd lashed out at her in some way or disappointed her and she'd calmly responded by making sure that he was safe and accounted for. Where was her sense of revenge? So determinably cool. Sometimes he liked to think that if he disappeared she would run around like a chicken with her head cut off—barking orders, threatening lives, running through corridors, kissing Assistant Directors—but there would need to be a rip in the time-space continuum for that to happen.

"Dude, you'll work it out," Langley assured him.

Mulder snorted. "There's nothing to work out."

Mulder saw his three companions share looks that seemed to indicate that they also thought he was 'unhinged.'

"I appreciate you jumping at Scully's every command, but I'd rather not discuss this with you," he said, rubbing his eyes with balled up fists.

He wasn't crying: the alcohol was just giving him rheumy eyes. He hoped everyone understood that he was not crying…at that particular moment. He'd choked on his tears and beat his fists against the steering wheel of his car two hours ago.

"We can just sit here and drown ourselves together," Frohike offered.

"What do you have to be sorry about?" Mulder asked. "I'd think you'd sweep in and steal Scully right from under me," he explained with what he intended to be a wink, but what he imagined looked more like a spasm.

"I still might," Frohike said, before swallowing a large amount of his whiskey. "We're here to mourn the loss of your sanity," he added, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "No sane man would walk out on Dana Scully."

"Is that what she told you?" he asked, staring forward at the illuminated Budweiser sign behind the bar. "That I left her?"

"In so many words," Byers unhelpfully offered.

"It's _complicated_ as they say," Mulder said with a sniff.

"Dude, you bet it is," Langley agreed.

"Your Oxford educated ass has to work with her," Frohike reminded him.

These three had clearly discussed the situation he'd gotten himself into on their car ride over by the nods they were all knowingly sharing.

"I'm well aware of the nitty-gritty details. Why don't you all go home to your bat cave?"

"Why don't you come home with us, sober up, and crawl back on your hands and knees tomorrow?" Frohike countered.

"I said some shitty things."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Frohike shrugged, fingering his half-empty glass.

"So you apologize…beg, man. Whatever," Langley said with a shrug.

"You know, I've heard a lot of things, but one of them isn't—desperation is dead sexy," Mulder said, trying out his best seductive voice. It came back sounding more inebriated than seductive to his ears.

"You were desperate for years and she still eventually took you in to play house," Frohike said, sounding only partially consoling.

"I wasn't desperate," Mulder insisted.

Langley tilted his head, "You kind of were, man."

Mulder shook his head, frowning foolishly, "I was highly desired. Hot stuff."

Langley looked unconvinced, "You had it bad."

"You still do," Frohike added, in a tone that suggested that he thought his assessment was incredibly insightful. "We're right on this one. Sober up, sleep it off, and then start working on your apology. It will need to be a doozy."

"You must have missed the sign above the door when you came in," Mulder said gesturing in the air to display an imaginary sign. "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." He dropped his hand back to the glass. "Or maybe it should say that above my office."

"Nothing's done that can't be undone," Byers said softly.

"I wanted to hurt her," Mulder said with a smirk, "like she'd hurt me. All I did was scare her."

"She's used to you going off half-cocked," Frohike reminded him. "It's nothing new for her to think you might do something stupid."

"No, I fucking _scared_ her. She was scared I was going to hurt her," Mulder said, crumpling up the bar napkin that had seen better days after sopping up the condensation of countless glasses of whiskey.

"What did you do, Mulder?" Byers asked seriously.

"It's no Goddamn wonder she doesn't love me."

"Do we need to check on Scully?" Byers continued worriedly.

"You think I'd hit her?" Mulder asked, laughing in spite of the anger that flashed in his eyes. "I'd rather take my chances with my shoelaces tonight." He examined the melting cubes of ice in his glass, considering. "Our usual sparring only involves weapons of the verbal kind. But, I had her going for a minute. She thought I just might," he clarified.

It hurt a hell of a lot more when she thought it it than when Huey, Dewey, and Louie did. Trust was all they ever had. He couldn't count on her love, but he could always count on her trust. He wasn't entirely trustworthy, perhaps.

His elbow slipped off the edge of the bar and he nearly lost his balance on the stool. Langley caught him by the arm.

"Time to go home, man," Langley said with a shake of the head. "You're trashed and you're going to feel like hell tomorrow. Come on, you can crash on our couch."

Mulder shook Langley off, growling at him. "I've got an apartment, thanks very much."

"You still rent that place?" Frohike asked, clearly taken aback.

"Yeah. It's such a treasure, I couldn't let it go," Mulder deadpanned. "That was part of the plan the missus didn't share with you, I guess."

Frohike gazed past him at the other two men, sharing another look that implied they all thought Mulder was as mad as a hatter. Frohike grabbed Mulder's arm, but Mulder threw him off yet again.

"She didn't want you to be alone, Mulder," Frohike said, crossing his arms with a scowl.

"Everyone better get used to disappointment. I'm not going anywhere with you. Report back to Scully that you have failed in your errand."

"Fine, you're on your own. But, don't call us at five AM. We'll be asleep," Frohike said before stalking away.

Langley paused to dig in his pockets for change, but coming up empty, followed Frohike out the door. Byers stood by, however, motionless.

"We should have brought a tranq gun," Byers mused.

Mulder nodded. "I'm feeling _difficult_."

"Listen," Byers said, placing his hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Mulder, don't do this."

Mulder looked up at Byers' sincere face. The face of a man who had pined for Susanne Modeski for more years than Mulder had known Dana Scully. But, it was little more than a fantasy for Byers, when Scully was flesh and blood. He wasn't sure Byers could understand.

"What would you suggest, Byers?" Mulder asked honestly, dropping the defensive sarcasm for a moment.

"Go home."

If only it was that simple.

"I don't know where home is anymore."

"Sure you do." Byers shifted his weight on his feet, clearly stalling for time while he tried to think of something convincing to say. "Mulder, if you don't go home…think of the alternative."

Mulder stirred his drink with his finger. Yes, the alternative. No Scully. It sounded so empty to him that he'd come to this bar to numb the senses entirely. Put off feeling the emptiness for at least one night.

"The boys will leave without you," Mulder reminded him, jerking his head towards the door.

"Don't do this," Byers tried once more.

Mulder considered. "What you're suggesting, Byers, without knowing it, is that I just take the scraps that are offered." Byers knit his brow, not understanding the ravings of a drunkard. "Is that what I should do? Just take the scraps?"

Byers slipped a twenty dollar bill on the moistened bar. "I think you should work it out."


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

"Mom, it's Dana," Scully spoke into the phone.

"Oh, hello," her mother responded a little strangely. "I've got to take this. I'll be right back," she said, muffled by the sound of what might have been her hand over the receiver.

"Are you busy?"

"No…" her mother hedged.

Scully could hear the tell-tale squeak of the kitchen door in the background.

"I'm on lunch break," Scully explained, "sitting in the park with a sandwich I can't quite manage to eat."

She looked down at her turkey sandwich and then glanced up at a couple jogging by. The park was full of people taking advantage of the Indian summer they were currently enjoying. Scully could take no enjoyment in it, but she'd needed to escape their office. The walls were beginning to feel as if they were closing in on her.

"Uh huh," her mother said, sounding distracted.

"Are you sure I'm not bothering you?"

"No, Dana, go ahead," her mother whispered.

She shook her head, baffled. "I just needed to talk to you. I'm having a strange day. Or a strange couple of days."

"Yes?"

She didn't know where to start. Now was one of those times she wished she still had a girlfriend she could call. Calls to girlfriends didn't usually involve maternal criticism. She needed to talk to someone, but she was fully prepared for her mother to have a wealth of _advice_ for her.

She'd come in ready to share an exceedingly tense day in the office to find he hadn't turned up. After waiting for an hour, she'd realized he wasn't going to show. It was an unnerving realization: she couldn't get him to come to his senses, if he couldn't even share a room with her.

"Mulder…hmm, Mulder took a personal day today."

"I know. He's been sitting in my kitchen since three AM."

Scully readjusted the grip on her cell phone. "He's with you?"

"He's slumped in one of my kitchen chairs, Dana."

"I sent some of his friends to get him last night."

She'd have something to say to those Gunmen, if they hadn't looked for him the way she'd asked them to. Did she have to draw a map?

"I don't know about that, but he showed up at the door this morning a little worse for wear."

"Oh my God," Scully mumbled, not quite believing what she was hearing. "You should have called me."

She wasn't sure what she would have done if her mother had called, but she was well aware that this wasn't her mother's detail.

"I couldn't call," her mother whispered.

"Why are you whispering?"

"Because he's in the next room."

"And he's an adult. He should be able to know I'm talking on the phone to my own mother. I've been trying to reach him all morning."

On his cell. On his old landline. Nothing. She didn't have the foggiest what she'd say if he answered, but she needed to know he was safe. At least that much was accomplished—he was safe. At her mother's house of all places. But she still wouldn't mind hearing his voice, if only to be given the opportunity to tell him what an impossible child he was being.

"I don't think he wants to talk, dear."

"Just give him the phone."

"I don't think so."

Her mother was playing gatekeeper. Fox Mulder truly was the favorite Scully child at this point. She wasn't sure how this had come about. He certainly hadn't promised to become a Catholic.

"Why? What did he tell you?" she asked, barely hiding her underlying accusation. It was the same one she had made several weeks earlier: 'Why aren't you on _my_ side?'

"Dana, he doesn't have anyone else to talk to."

Her mother heard the accusation loud and clear without having to spell it out for her.

"Neither do I, Mother!" she sputtered. "But, I went to work like a grown up. I didn't run off."

"Dana, if you could see him, you'd see there is no way he could go into work today."

'No, he's wounded. Of course,' she thought sarcastically. "But, I _can't_ see him: he left. Just give him the phone."

"For the last time, no. I think you need to cool down and he needs to sleep. It won't do any good talking to each other right now. This didn't happen in a day and it won't be solved in a day."

Scully wrapped her sandwich back up: there was no way she'd be able to stomach it now. After stuffing it in her bag, she took a few moments to compose herself, concentrating on her breathing and scanning the horizon. All she heard on the other end was silence. Her mother was apparently more than happy to let her daughter wind down.

"You said he was in bad shape. How do you mean?" she asked finally.

Before he'd left he'd mentioned the days when he'd been a drunk and slept his way through the secretarial pool. He hadn't said, but she had heard that's the way he acted shortly after Diana had gone away. She knew very little about that time other than rumors, since he'd never opened up to her about it. Last night she didn't expect he'd be in a bar picking up women, even though his harangue could have been taken as a threat. She'd had real concerns about what he would do, however. She'd sent the Lone Gunmen, because she figured they would know how to stop him from doing something stupid. It would seem that they'd failed. And somehow he'd ended up at her mother's—the last place she would have predicted.

"He'd been drinking," her mother admitted, sounding as if this was a shared secret between Fox and her that she'd rather not divulge.

Maybe her mother was aware that Dana Scully was made incredibly uncomfortable by drunks. She'd never developed the skill of brushing off drunken fights as her college girlfriends had. The harsh bravado of a man in his cups left her uneasy and vaguely irritated. She'd never been able to chalk drunkenness up to moments of excusable weakness. Scully didn't particularly like weakness of any kind—especially the inebriated kind. So while the thought of Mulder arriving in such a state at her mother's house was making her superficial temporal vein throb, she couldn't help feeling relieved that he hadn't shown up at her apartment. Scenes could have arisen.

"He didn't drive, did he?" she asked, crossing one leg over the other. 'Just what we'd need—a federal agent with a DUI.'

She was still thinking in terms of 'we,' because she didn't take Mulder's walkout for more than a temporary temper tantrum. At least, that was the scenario she'd been clinging to that morning as she'd sat alone in their basement office.

"He came in a cab."

An awfully expensive cab ride to unburden himself. "Does he seem like…like he might…do harm to himself?" she asked.

"He's upset." She knew that much. "I think you've both said some unkind things to each other."

More than a couple by her count. Some of the things they said had an uncanny accuracy in hitting their mark. The things he said to her still smarted. He was probably wearing the bruises of her words as well.

"I'd like to know what he told you," Scully insisted once more. "Because…he's no angel, you know."

There was a rustling on the other end of the line. "I told him he was wrong."

"About what?"

"He said that…you didn't love him."

Scully squeezed her eyes shut tight. She was by nature a private person. She would have rather he kept the details of their argument private. Particularly that accusation. It made her seem so small. As if after everything, she'd still be incapable of loving him.

"I told him you were more like your father. A little guarded, but that I know you love him."

Scully sighed. "There's no talking to him, Mother. I'm sure you can see that by now," she said looking at her watch. Her poor mother must have been consoling Mulder in her kitchen for going on nine hours now. The Pope himself couldn't do more. "Just send him off to bed. Stash him in the guest room."

"I've been trying to do that, Dana."

"And?"

"He just sits with his head in his hands. I can't get him to budge. He's recounted everything he's done wrong over the last decade or so. I'm not sure he's even listening to a word I say."

Scully worried her lip. That was what she was concerned about. Mulder so easily spiraled into self-blame that could become too dark. "Do you have any sedatives? A sleeping pill or something?"

"I might have something in the medicine cabinet. It would be old, if I do."

"Just get him to take something. He's more pliable when he's drugged." She spoke from experience.

"I'll do my best. I better go, Dana. I don't want to leave him for too long."

'With steak knives,' Scully thought with chagrin. Her mother probably hadn't thought to ask for Mulder's gun. "I'm sorry, Mother."

"That's alright. Just don't make a liar out of me, Dana."


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Mulder sat at his desk, feeling as if his body was being animated by an outside force. That he was still alive despite everything could almost be classified as an X-File.

He hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours, despite Maggie Scully's best efforts. He'd only slept for three—a drugged nightmare filled sleep—after Maggie had pressed a valium into his hand. He took it, not so much because Maggie had wordlessly handed him a glass of water, but because he knew to whom she'd been talking on the phone. Scully must have told her to give him something. He couldn't go back to her, but he could acquiesce to her wishes on this one point, given that he had nearly convinced her he was going to physically harm her.

When he'd awoken in a cold sweat in one of the Scullys' bedrooms, he'd panicked momentarily until Maggie had knocked on the door and come in with another glass of water. He should feel embarrassed about the way he'd acted at her house and the way she'd rubbed his back like he was a child in need of soothing. But, he had too much to be embarrassed about at the moment for that to even register. And he was very much in need of soothing.

"Take a shower, dear," she'd prodded him, running her hand through his hair.

A shiver had run down his spine. He now knew where Scully had learned that particular comforting gesture. That realization had the effect of causing everything that had happened in the last few days to flash before his mind's eye and he'd stood up abruptly, announcing that he had to go.

The cab fare to show up drunk on Maggie's doorstep in Baltimore had set him back $61.38; the fare back to his stale lonely apartment in Alexandria cost just as much with an additional seven miles and five dollars added to the already steep cost of confession. Catholics like the Scullys had confessional booths; Mulder had Maggie's kitchen. From what he understood, absolution was supposed to bring about a return to grace. It was spiritually improving, but had psychological benefits as well. He hadn't exactly felt better, however, as he'd fled Saint Margaret's house. Maybe kitchen confessions didn't work quite as effectively.

The shower he'd finally taken slumped against the white tiles of his long unused shower hadn't made him feel any better either. Particularly when he'd choked on the stream of water, forgetting in his trance that he couldn't breathe like a fish. The sleepless night he'd spent on his old leather couch also had done him no favors. All of these actions were merely animations of a dead corpse.

At least he didn't feel like sticking the barrel of his Smith and Wesson in his mouth anymore. He wasn't feeling anything. This morning, before Dana Scully ever arrived at work, he'd sent her packing. She didn't know the half of it.

When the office door opened, he jumped, but managed to train his blank stare at his computer screen. He could feel her eyes upon him. He had all he could do to keep from flinching.

"Morning," Scully said, closing the door behind her. She sounded unsure of herself. Or unsure of them, more likely.

"Morning," he managed, though his voice threatened to crack.

He watched her in his peripheral vision as she walked to her table and began to arrange her belongings methodically.

"I didn't know you'd be coming in today," she said without glancing over her shoulder at him.

He swallowed. "I've always planned on having 'Workaholic' inscribed on my tombstone. Never let it be said Fox Mulder is a hypocrite. One day was enough," he explained. 'Take that as you will,' he silently projected at her. 'One day to lick my wounds. One day to get over you.' That was a lie, of course: it would take a lifetime. Or longer. If there was a hereafter, he fully expected to be mourning his loss of her there as well.

She slipped into her chair and opened her laptop. "I thought perhaps you'd call," she said calmly staring into her screen.

"Your mother probably gave you the update," he said with a shrug. There was no point in pretending that she didn't know he'd made a scene at her mother's house.

She finally glanced up from her laptop, "That was yesterday afternoon."

He turned away from his computer and was struck by the intensity of her gaze—her eyes piercingly blue even from this distance. It took him a half beat to recover. "So, after my fine display, I went home."

She nodded, looking back at her screen.

That was his reality: home was the apartment he'd abandoned a year earlier. The apartment they'd shared was nothing but a scene in the fractured fantasy he'd been busy constructing for himself like a crank fairytale writer. Her apartment was off-limits to him now. He'd torn up the fictitious stage scenery, so he couldn't return in a state of somnambulism. Worse yet, she was off-limits.

'But, her heart always was,' he reminded himself.

"Well, I'm glad you're back," she said, sounding not entirely convinced of her own statement. "We have some catching up to do here." She cleared her throat. "I got some interesting e-mails yesterday while you were gone," she said, tapping away at the keys on her laptop.

She apparently intended on focusing on the work. That was her strategy. Mulder licked his lips, wondering when he should stop her.

"That non-case we were on may just be more of a case than I thought…than we thought." Scully stood up, grabbed some loose papers off the table, and walked over towards him. "Here," she said, laying them in front of him and leaning over his shoulder, "what does this look like to you?"

He looked down at the grainy print outs before him.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Someone heard we were interested in the phenomenon in Norfolk and e-mailed me these photos that were taken that night."

He shuffled through the pages, trying to ignore the scent of her shampoo and the feel of her shoulder bumping against his as she bent over him.

"What does it look like to you?" she repeated.

"I'm supposed to say—alien spaceship—right?" he asked nonplussed at her attempt to humor him on what was usually a sore point between the two of them.

She stood upright, and Mulder took a deep breath, thankful for the distance.

"I thought you might think so. So, I made a few phone calls. I'm still waiting to hear back from that meteorologist, but I did have an interesting chat with Chuck Dibbs. He runs the VBCPS Planetarium in Virginia Beach. He was setting up his telescope to do some stargazing that evening and…"

Hearing Scully wax poetic on the likelihood of the Norfolk phenomenon being related to alien activity should have held his attention, but Mulder failed to hear anything she said as he stared blankly at his desk. He couldn't get past the personal. This is what it would be like: to spend every day with her, pretending that the last year and a half had never happened. To have her hovering at his side, yet permanently out of reach. To feel as if he was about to split into two jagged halves that could not be made whole again despite the valiant attempts of all the king's horses and all the king's men.

He was drawn forcibly back into this world when Scully leaned down once more, picking up one of the printouts and holding it aloft. "Look at the shadow this thing is casting over the water," she said pointing at the picture.

"Scully," he said, swallowing. "You need to know something."

She straightened up, clutching the paper in her grasp, "Okay."

He scrubbed his face with his hand. He would have rather he didn't have to tell her this face-to-face, but having someone else do it seemed lower than chicken-shit.

"This wasn't what I'd planned…the other night…" he stumbled. He watched her for a moment as she stood before him, her brows knit in confusion. She was bracing herself for some uncomfortable revelation, but she didn't know what it was. "I thought I could do this, but I can't."

"Do what, Mulder?" she asked, sliding the paper in her hand back onto his desk.

He leaned back in his chair, causing it to tilt backwards and trying to assume an air of cool reserve. "You should like this," he said, folding his hands in his lap. "You were right all along."

"About?" she asked warily.

"You thought rationally that it was a bad idea. Hindsight has proven you to be correct. Sex, love…all of that ruined what we had—friendship, partnership."

Her lips parted just slightly, but she remained silent. He waited to see if she would agree or protest, but she said nothing.

"I've requested that you be transferred to another division immediately."

The world slowed to one fourth its normal ticking pace as he watched Scully digest his words, pitch awkwardly, stretch out one hand towards his desk, and crumple before him. His limbs moved agonizingly slowly as he reached out to catch her and failed miserably in the effort. He heard the crack of her head meeting the tile floor before he saw the blood.

"Goddamn it," he cursed loudly, jumping from his chair and crouching on the floor beside her. He gingerly turned her head with his hands, but her eyes remained closed as he examined the trickle of blood flowing down her temple. "Scully, wake up!" he pleaded with her as he tapped her pale cheek.

He'd had nightmares like this for years, where something would happen to Scully and he would be helpless to do anything about it. But, it had never been quite like this. It had never been so generically his fault. There were no aliens to blame. No men in black. No menacing monsters. No sociopaths. Just him delivering another kick in the gut. And his inability to be of any use once he'd delivered the blow.

'Fuck me and my worthless psychology degree,' he thought as he stood up and reached for the phone on his desk. Dialing 911, Mulder crouched down beside her once more, stretching the black phone cord so as to reach.

"Scully, wakey wakey," he whispered, tilting her chin. "Yes, this is Agent Fox Mulder at the FBI headquarters. I have an agent down. I need an emergency medical transport immediately." He felt for her pulse, as the operator asked him a series of questions. "I don't know what happened. She fainted and hit her head. She's been sick. We're in the basement. Get someone here _now_." Her pulse fluttered beneath his touch. "An ambulance? Send a damn MedEvac helicopter. This woman is a federal agent," he barked into the phone.

Mulder dropped the receiver, letting it hang from the desk and bang against the metal of the drawers, when he heard the dispatcher begin to explain why a MedEvac wouldn't be necessary when an ambulance was already on its way. He looped his arms under Scully, lifting all one hundred pounds of her up, so that she dangled from his arms like a limp rag doll. An ambulance might be on its way, but it would never get here fast enough: he'd carry her out the front door of the Hoover Building himself.


	17. Chapter 16

Author's Note: Much thanks to Lily Bart, who advised me on the conclusion to this chapter. The beauty of fan fiction is that the community knows the characters as well as the author does, and therefore, feedback can be a vital part of the process. That being said, thanks to all of you who have felt compelled to share your feedback. There will be an epilogue posted in a few days.

Chapter Sixteen

If he'd been married to her, he wouldn't have had to sit in the waiting room for as long as he had. That little slip of paper granted a person all sorts of rights that 'partner' or 'friend' or 'lover' did not. But the mere suggestion of such a possibility had turned her into a hysterical mess, as he vividly remembered.

So they weren't married, but he would have lied to the hospital staff about their marital status, if the EMTs hadn't already warned them about him. When they'd arrived at the Hoover Building, he'd already been awaiting their arrival, having jogged through the building with Scully draped across his arms. As they'd loaded her into the ambulance, he'd tried to get in with her, but one Nordic looking specimen had blocked his entrance, asking if he was family.

"I'm her partner," he'd stammered.

"Sir, you can meet her at the hospital," the burly man had replied, shutting the door to the ambulance.

As the door was closing, Mulder had seen Scully reach out to him and saw her mouthing something he couldn't make out to the EMT at her side. She'd come to as he'd jostled her through the building, but she'd been incoherent. He needed to know what she was saying even if she was cursing him with the only strength she had. He needed to stay with her. Hold her hand. Push the damp hair off her forehead. So, he'd had no choice but to try to push past the EMT, so he could dash for the passenger side door of the ambulance, but the man had held out his arm to block him once more.

"Your partner will be fine. You can meet her there, sir."

"Who the hell are you to tell me I can't come with her?" he'd barked.

Mulder had been seconds away from making a bad situation worse when AD Skinner arrived on the scene, having been alerted by his secretary to the ruckus on the front steps of the building. He'd promised the man that Mulder meant nothing by his threat to kill anybody who let something happen to her. If Skinner hadn't arrived, he'd be sitting in a jail cell as opposed to the waiting room at George Washington University Hospital. He had been seriously thinking about knocking that Nordic man out, damn the consequences.

Mulder was supposed to call Skinner as soon as he heard something, but he'd already asked the woman at reception fifteen times if he could see his partner or get an update to no avail. The advice he'd been given by this stranger was to 'be patient.' So he sat, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees and his hands folded together. Waiting didn't feel particularly useful, but it did give him plenty of time to concoct several scenarios in his mind.

It could be CANCER. If so, he didn't know what he could do. Who would he have to shake down for another cure? Was there even a cure out there? How many miracle cures could one person hope for? And if there was nothing that could be done, what do you say to a dying woman you've just broken up with and relieved of her job?

She could die. Not a year from now or a month from now. No, she could die alone behind those doors while he exercised 'patience.' She could die and he would have never had the chance to apologize. Or to tell her that he loved her with every fiber of his being. That he would have pulled the stars from the heavens for her if it would have only made her happy.

Or she could live. And hate him.

"Mr. Mulder?" the receptionist called from behind the desk.

He sat upright, ready to abandon 'patience' for a more productive activity. "Yes?"

"Ms. Scully has been moved to another room and you can see her now."

He stood up, striding towards the desk. "Does it say how she is?" he asked, straining to look at the woman's computer monitor.

"No, sir. Just that she's in room 302. The elevator to your left," the woman said, gesturing to the hall.

His heart thundered in his ears as he approached her door. He paused. The door was only slightly ajar and hanging on the door was her patient chart. It occurred to Mulder that she might not want to see him. Or that she might not want to tell him what was wrong. These were possibilities he could not tolerate. He glanced around to see if any nurses or orderlies were nearby and then grabbed the chart off the hook.

…

He knocked on the door lightly before pushing it open all the way. Scully was sitting upright in her blue hospital gown propped with a pillow in a tilted hospital bed. Her red hair was tucked behind her ears and he could see a blue bruise forming beneath a butterfly bandage high on her right cheek bone where her face had met with the tile floor of their office.

"Hey," he said softly.

She raised one hand weakly in a poor imitation of a wave.

"Sorry I couldn't ride along with you. I was 'emotionally unsuitable for a ride along' apparently."

She nodded, smoothing her hands across the white sheets of the bed.

He walked into the room and approached her side, reaching up to tentatively brush the bruise on her face with the back of his fingers. He frowned in disapproval.

"You're too beautiful to be always marked up like this," he said with a sigh.

She looked up at him nervously, but still said nothing.

"When were you going to tell me?" he asked flatly. Her lips parted as if to speak, but he interrupted her, "I read your chart." She couldn't get away with lying anymore.

"I didn't know, Mulder."

He rubbed his chin, "Really? You didn't get your medical degree from some off-shore place that skips the biological basics. I think you are fairly well-versed on how all this works."

Her hand fluttered up to the bruise on her face and she blinked quickly. "This is supposed to be impossible."

Yes, 'this' was; he wondered if she was going to actually say the words. He didn't trust his own voice to do so.

"I thought it was the flu and then migraines and then…I made an appointment yesterday with my oncologist." She fidgeted with the admittance band on her wrist. "I might change it to an appointment with a psychologist."

He sighed, turning around to grab the orange plastic chair from the corner and pull it up to her bed. Flopping into the chair, he leaned back, trying to process the information in her chart just as he'd done in the hallway for a full ten minutes before knocking.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Are you asking as a psychologist?" she asked pursing her lips.

"I'm pretty by the book when it comes to the unethicality of sexual relations between doctors and patients. Pretty sure it rules me out," he said with a smirk. He didn't know what he was to her at the moment, however. Inquiring friend? Former lover? Colleague? "So, as a curious bystander, how are you feeling?" He knew he sounded childishly resentful.

"Feeling? Physically or emotionally?" she asked.

"Whatever you want to tell me."

"Confused," she confessed, looking out the window.

"Are you happy?" he asked, his voice wavering.

She turned back to face him, her lips trembling as she nodded 'yes.' Wiping at the tears that threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes, she began, "I thought a relapse of my cancer explained all the symptoms I was experiencing. Nausea, headaches, hot flashes, lightheadedness, and missed cycles." She choked out a laugh, "I guess I was wrong."

Mulder stretched out his hand for the one she had resting closest to him on the bed. Leaning over, he pressed his forehead to their clasped hands.

When he'd seen her chart, he'd assumed that she'd known. That she'd known she was pregnant with his child, but was keeping the information from him. Why? Because she didn't think he'd be a good father? Because she'd already grown weary of him and wanted a clean break that was made impossible by this development?

Perhaps she was as surprised as he was—she certainly seemed it—but the revelation still unearthed fears he thought he'd escaped two years ago. When she'd been undergoing IVF, he hadn't known where he fit in. She'd asked him to donate sperm, but that's all she'd asked of him. Thanks to their current fractured relationship, he was no more certain of where this left him than he had been then. He wanted to be happy for her. For Christ's sake, _he_ wanted to be happy. His child was growing inside Scully. His. No one else's. And they'd conceived it the old-fashioned way. No test tubes and white coats and visual aid magazines. Just the two of them and a small miracle.

He wanted to scoop her into his arms, press her to his chest, and tell her that he loved her. That he loved this baby. But fear gnawed at his stomach. Fear and guilt.

"Scully, I'm sorry," he said without lifting his head.

He felt her place her other hand on the crown of his head. "Neither of us has been at our best."

"I wouldn't have…I wouldn't have said those things or…" he floundered, shaking his head against their joined hands.

She ran her fingers slowly through his hair. "You said what you needed to say."

"I was being an asshole" he sniffed, sitting upright, but still holding onto her hand. He ran his free hand over his nose and mouth, drawing in a deep breath, "Are you okay, otherwise? Why are they keeping you here?"

"They're running some tests. I'll be released as soon as they come back. I'm fine."

He looked down at the spot on her arm where they'd drawn blood, which was now covered by a cotton ball and piece of white medical tape. "They're done poking and prodding you?"

"For the time being." She adjusted herself slightly in the bed, and he stood to help her with her pillow before taking her hand once more.

"I'm supposed to call Skinner. You and I made a scene this morning, so he's concerned."

What was he supposed to tell Skinner?

"Skinner," she mused, probably contemplating the same question. "I won't be running around on the X-Files, I guess."

"Skinner doesn't know why I made the request…you can tell him about your pregnancy, if you want…" Mulder stuttered. "I commended your work. I always do."

"It wouldn't be safe for me there anyway," Scully said dismissively, ignoring the original reason for her transfer. "I should be at Quantico…for now."

He squeezed her hand, "For now." He could promise her that much. He'd always wanted her as his partner; it was only a moment of cowardice that had caused him to seek an end to their partnership. If she wanted to be on the X-Files with him, he'd crawl on his knees and kiss Skinner's ring to make it so. She only had to say the word. "You're too good of a shot to be cooped up in a classroom."

"Better than you," she shrugged.

He shifted on his feet, "What do we do now?"

Did they rewind the clock? Pretend he hadn't walked out on her? Pretend he hadn't written up a request for her transfer that morning? Pretend that they hadn't failed to connect with each other beyond the physical during the past few months? Mulder wasn't sure: Pretending seemed to have contributed to their current position.

His mother had warned him not to ever get a girl in trouble, but she'd never prepared him for these circumstances.

Scully glanced down at her still flat stomach beneath the scratchy hospital sheets. Seeing her fixed gaze, he moved their clasped hands over to rest on her stomach.

"I want this baby, Mulder. I've wanted it for years. I just want to be happy about this."

"I know," he responded faintly.

He wanted to press her for information about how she felt about him. If she wanted him. If she wanted him as a father for their child. If she wanted him for herself. But, he'd have to wait: Now wasn't the time. Now she just wanted to luxuriate in the impossible come to life.

"Beyond that, I don't know what I want," she admitted.

He shifted his gaze from her upturned face to their hands pressed against her stomach. There was no magic wand he could wave to make the last few weeks go away or heal the deeper issues that plagued them. But there was this child. There was more at stake than a failed relationship and a tattered partnership.

"You better figure it out," he responded evenly. 'Seven months and counting.'

"Hey," she said, drawing his attention once more.

Tears began to glisten in her eyes yet again, and he frowned slightly at her: She wasn't doing so well just trying to be happy.

"Don't get all misty. I'm sure it won't have my nose."

"I love you, Mulder."

Her voice was firm and her jaw was set with determination, as if she wanted to be certain he believed her. But, he didn't need the steady tone of voice or the physical posturing. The words were finally spoken not in the darkness of a bedroom, but in the harsh light of a hospital room, where he could look her in the eye. He could see the truth laid bare in her clouded blue eyes. Miracle of miracles: Dana Scully loved him.

He bent down to kiss her forehead, and speaking against the smoothness of her skin, he whispered to her, "Well, that's a start."


	18. Epilogue

Epilogue

Consciousness came to him slowly as he heard his name and felt fingers prodding him in the side. Blinking, he rolled over to face her in the darkness, when he heard her say his name once more in hushed tones.

"Mulder," she said, taking his hand and placing it over the roundness of her belly. "Do you feel that?" she asked, pressing his palm against the silkiness of her skirt.

He felt something. More than something. He was awash in feeling.

"It's our baby," she whispered.

Our baby. Our blessing. Our hope for the future.

The ice had melted.

* * *

Acknowledgments

This fic has been playing out here on FanFiction_net for over three months. Over that time, I have been working feverishly to complete it thanks in no small part to the people who have been kind enough to post their feedback. It is a darker story than I have ever written, so the feedback was truly appreciated and helped me guide the story. Thanks especially to those people who regularly gave feedback: xfilegrl, Dana42, ProFfeSseR, The billion dollar bitch, Stephen Greenwood, LolaX, Lily Bart, Gillyfan, believe-trustno1, chlark4, Deyse, Katie Todd, rebafan4ever, BeshterAngelus, SharkGirl22262, , and colee41. If I forgot someone, many apologies. I couldn't have done it without all of you.

At the outset I was concerned people would not like a fic where Scully and even Mulder were acting consistently at their worst. It has certainly made for a lot of angst. What I've learned is that we might all need to seek professional help regarding our love of angst ;)

To those who care about such things, I will hopefully begin posting the third and final part of Cursing Miracles at the end of the summer. In the meantime, I might have some shorter fics up my sleeve.


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